The Stay at Home! Literary Festival

I’ve just stumbled across something amazing on Twitter that I have to share with you: The Stay at Home! Literary Festival. Obviously, due to the Coronavirus, live events and festivals across the world are being cancelled or postponed right now. While that’s disappointing (but necessary), it’s also an exciting time for new endeavours, as the saying goes: necessity is the mother of invention.

Self-isolating restrictions mean that people can’t be together in a physical sense, but they can still be together digitally to share and enjoy the things they love. In our case: books.

Enter… The Stay at Home! Literary Festival. Running from Friday 27th March – Saturday 11th April, it is a COMPLETELY FREE digital literary festival that showcases some amazing authors, workshops, readings and Q&As covering a great array of topics, from publishing to poetry, novel writing and career advice. The line-up includes Maggie O’Farrell, Samantha Downing, CL Taylor and lots more.

I also love that on their website they state that the aims of the festival are to: ‘(a) prevent loneliness, (b) champion connectivity and community amidst social distancing, and (c) celebrate writing and reading as tools to achieve.’

I am particularly looking forward to:

/ Friday 27th March: Beverly Ward’s ‘Keep Calm and Carry on Writing’ workshop;

/ Monday 30th March: New Irish Fiction, authors Helen Cullen, Elaine Feeney and Ruth Gilligan discuss their new work;

/ Tuesday 31st March: Abbie Greaves, Beth Morreyand Clare Pooley in conversation with CJ Cooke about their debut novels;

/ Friday 3rd April: Maggie O’Farrell in conversation about her new novel, Hamnet;

/ Tuesday 7th April: Emma Flint discussing her route to publication;

/ Friday 10th April: Samantha Downing in conversation with CJ Cooke chatting about her hit novel, My Lovely Wife;

/ Saturday 11th April: Phoebe Morgan, publisher and author talks all things books.

Have a browse through the full wonderful programme here. All you need to do to join in with the festival is go on their site and click the link at the time the event you want to see is on. It’s that simple. Find more details on Twitter @StayatHomefest or on their website.

See you (virtually) there on Friday!