Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival has best year yet

By Beth May

Organisers of the fifth annual Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival have reported a record breaking year selling the highest number of tickets in the festival’s history.

This year’s festival, which took place from 19th – 22nd September attracted international interest with organisers taking orders for tickets from the other side of the globe.

The line up featured a dazzling list of distinguished authors including Hilary Mantel CBE, Melvyn Bragg, PD James, Peter Snow, Jackie Kay, Peter Stothard, Miriam Darlington, Sarah Moss, Sam Willis, Lynne Truss, James Fleet and Professor Callum Roberts.

Alongside the wide variety of literary talks, visitors had the opportunity to meet their favourite authors at a series of book signing events in the Festival Marquee on The Green where accompanying music came in the form of groups such as the Budleigh Ukulele Strumming Club and Just Misbehavin’ swing band.

This year's Festival closed with an event championing and celebrating the seminal American novel The Great Gatsby. Local jazz band Hamer & Issacs performed two sets and American scholar & author Sarah Churchwell talked about her book Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and The Invention of the Great Gatsby.

Audience members dressed up in 1920s flapper dresses, pearls and panama hats and the bar served Sidebars and Raspberry Rickey cocktails. The venue, the Public Hall, was also transformed with cabaret seating, candles and fairy lights.

Commenting on the success of this year’s festival, festival committee member Sonia Lapwood said: “This was another terrific festival, a fitting tribute to our founder, the late Susan Ward, and a great celebration of Budleigh itself and all things literary.  The town was buzzing throughout the weekend, dotted with famous faces such as Lynne Truss and our Festival President Hilary Mantel. The authors were vividly entertaining and the weather was kind once again. Thank you to all of our visitors and thank you to our team, who worked their socks off for another year”.

The Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival was founded in 2008 by Susan Ward. Her vision was to attract acclaimed authors, playwrights and poets, whilst retaining accessible ticket prices and a friendly atmosphere. Sarah-Jane Roberts was appointed as the new Artistic Director in January 2013. Sarah-Jane has previously worked as a literature programmer for Brighton Festival and WAI Festival.

For more information visit www.budlitfest.org.uk. Follow the festival on Twitter @BudleighLitFest and like it on Facebook.com/BudleighSaltertonliteraryfestival.