Michael Gallico, chair of Northumberland book festival Berwick Literary Festival, writes:
Berwick Literary Festival will announce the programme for our eighth Festival in late July. It’s an excellent programme and we hope you’ll find much to interest you at our October Festival in 2021.
We were delighted last year by the wave of interest in our Festival brought to you from beautiful Berwick-upon-Tweed – and enormously grateful for your generosity at a time when our income was badly affected.
Perhaps you heard about Berwick last year for the first time and are amongst the many visitors to North Northumberland this year.
Our Festival has no big corporate sponsor and no public arts sector finance but relies on local businesses and a vital group of Patrons. Having this group put its name to our Friendly Festival in a Walled Town really encourages the volunteer organising team – and helps raise sponsorship locally.
As well as the four-day Festival, we run a programme in all our local schools, typically a theatre workshop or writing competition. We also (restrictions permitting) read poetry to residents of the town’s care homes. All in all, we are more than a four day book festival.
I am writing to ask you not only to look out for our programme announcement featuring all the names and events you’ll find at our autumn Festival; but also to invite you to make a firmer contribution to the Festival’s future by becoming a Patron.
All Patrons – Berwick-based and those living elsewhere – enjoy benefits: a small discount on tickets when we can run live events, and evening talks with regional authors and those connected with the world of writing (which we’ve held on Zoom). Many Patrons support the Festival simply because they know it is a Good Thing: good for Berwick and its economy and good for literature – written, spoken, and performed.
For details of our Patron’s scheme please see Patrons – Berwick Literary Festival
The 2021 programme for our book festival in the Borders will be first revealed to Patrons at a Zoom launch event on 27 July. The event will also include a conversation with Amanda Block, an Edinburgh-based writer with a family connection to Berwick, whose first novel The Lost Storyteller will be published on 8 July by Hodder Studio.
Michael Gallico, chair of Berwick Literary Festival, Northumberland
