2024 Festival Programme
Around 150 people enjoyed Leiston’s first book festival, which could not have taken place without the generous support of Leiston Town Council and Sizewell Creative and the hard work of our partner Halesworth Bookshop and our volunteers.
Audience feedback left us in no doubt that people would like future festivals to follow the same landscape and environment theme.
Scroll down to meet the authors who took part in our inaugural book festival.
2024 Leiston Book Festival
Took place on Saturday 7th September 2024 | Leiston Film Theatre
1.00pm
Break
A chance to buy some lunch, browse some books or chat with our authors
Patrick Galbraith
Patrick Galbraith grew up in Scotland and studied English literature at Bristol and University College London before dropping out to become a writer. He’s covered everything from naturism to butchers’ shops to the free party scene. He’s fascinated by the way that people and nature interact. He is a columnist for Country Life and The Critic and his work has appeared in The Times, The FT, and The Spectator. He is currently working on his second book, which explores the fight for land access.
Patrick was interviewed by country sports expert Graham Downing, who lives and works in Suffolk.
Tom Parfitt
Tom Parfitt spent 20 years living and working in Moscow as a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian and the Times. His memoir, High Caucasus, recounts his 1,000-mile journey on foot across the northern flanks of the Greater Caucasus mountain range in southern Russia, passing over the shoulder of Mount Elbrus, across high-altitude pastures and through forests inhabited by bears and wild boar. The walk reveals a landscape scarred and haunted by the traumas of the past, from war in Chechnya to deportation and ethnic cleansing in Karachay, Balkaria and former Circassian lands.
Tom was interviewed by novelist and journalist Wendy Holden.
Robert Ashton
Inspired by the late George Ewart Evans Robert’s latest book Where are the Fellows who Cut the Hay has been described as’ an ode to rural life, charting traditions of the past, how they were lost and why we need to reconnect.’ Robert meets grandchildren of those whose stories Evans collected, and people who today, are bringing back almost forgotten ways as we all respond to the threat of climate change. Robert is also founder of the Leiston Book Festival.
Robert was interviewed by writer and broadcaster Paul Heiney.
Richard Hawking
Richard Hawking is the author of At the Field’s Edge: Adrian Bell and the English Countryside, the first critical monograph of Bell’s writing appraising his observations about the ecology, economy and culture of the British countryside. He is currently working with Slightly Foxed to compile and introduce a quartet of seasonal volumes of Bell’s A Countryman’s Notebook essays from his extensive archives. A Countryman’s Winter Notebook and Spring Notebook were published in 2021 and 2023 respectively, with the Summer and Autumn editions published in May and September this year.
Richard was interviewed by Richard Jones, head-teacher of an environmentally progressive school in Hertfordshire.
Julia Blackburn
Julia has lived in this part of Suffolk for more than thirty years during which time she has written twelve books of non-fiction, alongside a memoir, three volumes of poetry and two novels. She is currently working on a collection of random thoughts and essays which might be called Angels Dancing on a Pin. She is also, for the first time in ages, seeing what it is like to not aim to write every day.
Julia was interviewed by Abbie Clements, owner of Halesworth Bookshop.
Jules Pretty
Jules Pretty is Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex. His sole-authored books include The Low-Carbon Good Life (2023), Sea Sagas of the North (2022), The East Country (2017), The Edge of Extinction (2014), This Luminous Coast (2011), The Earth Only Endures (2007), Agri-Culture (2002), The Living Land (1998), and Regenerating Agriculture (1995).
He is former Deputy-Chair of the UK government’s Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, and has served on advisory committees for BBSRC and the Royal Society. He was appointed A D White Professor-at-Large by Cornell University from 2001, and was Founding Editor of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. He received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture, an honorary degree from Ohio State University, and the British Science Association Presidential Medal (Agriculture and Food) in 2015. He was appointed President of Essex Wildlife Trust in 2019, is Chair of the Essex Climate Action Commission, and was also a trustee for WWF-UK. This Luminous Coast was winner of New Angle Prize for Literature, and The East Country was winner of the East Anglian book of the year. He host of 80 podcasts and films (in the series Louder Than Words and Brighter Futures), and writes the series The Climate Chronicles at www.julespretty.com.
