POETRY COMPETITION UPDATE!
We've had some great entries so far for our competition, from all around the UK plus enquiries from poets overseas. The quality of entries is high, making it a hard job for our judges, but they welcome the hard work!
So, this is particularly a call out to our more local poets (such as North Somerset and Bristol) -  we'd love to hear from more of you with your entries (enter here)...
What's the soundtrack to your Saturday/weekend?
Be it the music you love/fell in love to, the roar of the crowd as your team scores, the low lights and tunes at your favourite club/bar..
To give our local poets, and anyone anywhere else, some more time, we've decided to extend the competition, with a new closing date of 17 April 2025 (11.59pm).

Read Adam White's (our guest judge) recent West Grand Blog here

New sponsor 2025: The Hawthorns
We are delighted to announce that The Hawthorns has generously agreed to be one of our sponsors this year.
This well-known Clevedon retirement home, in its iconic setting along the seafront, has also donated their beautiful atrium space to host an exhibition during our June event.
Aggie Jasinski Client Liaison Manager at The Hawthorns says: “We are thrilled to be part of this year’s LitFest, proudly sponsoring and hosting the Punch and Judy exhibition at The Hawthorns Clevedon. It’s an honour to support local events and welcome the public to our fantastic community. See you in June and let’s celebrate LitFest together!

Hare-raising antics in Alexandra Gardens (30 March 2024)

Michael Loader and Tom Veck entertained a crowd of children and adults with their words and music in Alexandra Park, and even the sun managed to put in an appearance.  A delightful re-telling of a Brer Rabbit (or is it hare?) story had everyone engaged, with plenty of opportunities for the children to join in the fun!  This is the second outing for an Easter storytelling event and it is fast turning into an annual fixture in the LitFest calender.

 

 

 

 

 

Clevedon Sailing Club looked suitably sparkly for our annual 'thank you' social for our lovely volunteers and supporters.  We were delighted to welcome so many of you, and to hear such a buzz and chatter around our plans for this year!
We were also pleased to welcome some new volunteers, who signed up at the 'social' - if you are interested in volunteering with us, in any capacity, you can sign up here.
Our Programme Coordinator, Sarah Morris, gave us a peek at the exciting plans evolving for the Summer Festival (6-8 June) and trustee Jayne Linington gave us some background about the motorcitysixty poetry competition (open for entries until 20 March) and reminded everyone to watch out for tickets going on sale in February, for our Fundraising Quiz. We were also thrilled to learn from Fiona Trim (The Theatre Shop) that there just might be a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Sunhill Park this summer!
So, lots to look forward to - join our mailing list to stay informed!

In conversation with: Julia Bradbury (5 June 2024)

An audience of over 300 people packed the Curzon for this fantastic opening event of our 2024 Summer Festival.

Julia Bradbury joined Pauline Cox (nutritionist) for an evening of conversation that covered everything from the benefits of spending time in nature and walking for health, humourous confessions of her 'sugar addiction', and  practical tips from her own experience of building nature into her everyday live - eating well, sleeping well and moving more.

The evening ended with the whole audience joining Julia in some energetic moves to music - truly a memorable experience!  And afterwards a large queue formed to meet Julia, as she signed her book, 'Walk Yourself Happy'

As someone commented, it was "educational and eye-opening, made me think of a better way to live" and at least two of our team were up early the following day feeling inspired "to have a morning walk & enjoy the light".

 

 

A virtual “Poets’ Walk” call for poets
This is a callout for locally-based poets who would like to respond to themes inspired by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s associations with Clevedon. The curated poems will be used to build a located audio walk accessed through the smartphone for the upcoming LitFest. The walk will be triggered on location on a route (to be decided) in Clevedon, but certainly involving the existing Poets’ Walk.
The themes we wish to explore are:
1 Themes of loss as explored in Tennyson’s poem In Memorium for his friend Hallam, who is buried in St Andrew’s churchyard.
2 Themes of the music of nature as explored in much of Coleridge’s work and – specifically – in his conversation poem The Aeolian Harp, written in the early days of his marriage to Sara when they were living in Clevedon.
From these two great poets’ historical associations with the town, we wish to create poetic dialogues on the theme of the poems most associated with the place. Poets may approach either or both of these themes with reference to the body of each poet’s work or the history of their time, or the locations the walk touches, see map on Discover Clevedon website (Poets walk - downloadable pdf). We are looking for lively and interesting contemporary work that is based on the poet’s real experience and works well as audio (SFX and music may be added).

Timeline -
April 2nd 2024: Call for work - extended to 7 May
April 30th 2024: Deadline for first drafts
May 14th /May 21st 2024: Online workshopping of chosen poems
June Festival 2024: Demonstration of app and Exhibition of poems (Clevedon Library Saturday 8 June 10am-11am), plus 'Walk the Poets' - join the creators of the new Poets’ Walk app for an informal social walk along Clevedon’s famous path (meet at Marine Lake steps 10am Sunday 9 June)
September 2024: Launch of final working app
Expressions of interest and poems to : martin.rieser@gmail.com

Our annual fund-raiser Literary Quiz Night on 1 May was a great success.  Thirteen teams battled it out and the winners, team name 'Literally Amazing', secured the top spot by half a point - congratulations!

Thanks to everyone who came along to The Salthouse Bar & Restaurant and supported us. We hope that you had as good a time as we did. 

Also, a big thank you to The Salthouse for hosting us and for donating a prize for the raffle.

 

The Four Reasons - Spring Awakening (21 March 2024)

The first of our seasonal offerings at Theatre Shop popped up just like  many of the spring flowers, the audience were wowed by poems from Tennyson to Plath and stories to stir us all from our winter sleep...'great evening, enjoyed the mix, the tales, the poems and the music'.