A Happy New Year from everyone at Essex Book Festival HQ. We hope your stockings were
filled with fine books – ours certainly were – and that you all had a wonderful festive season, and are looking forward to 2026 as much as we are.
Plans are very much underway for this year’s Festival (28 May – 28 June). Excitingly, we will be ‘kicking off’ next year’s festival with a nod to the World Cup at new festival venue for 2026: Colchester Community Football Ground, on Thursday 28 May. Football and sports aficionados might like to crack the spine of the new diary and mark the date now for what promises to be a memorable launch event.
Other new venues for June include The Gibberd Garden, a hidden gem nestled on the edge of Harlow, and the fascinating Museum of Power housed in a former Water Pumping Station in Langford.
Before we turn our thoughts to the summer, we have a fascinating ‘warm up’ event taking place 7pm on Tuesday 24 February at The Minories, Colchester, in partnership with EA Festival and The Minories as part of our series of Art Talks.
In art and words, internationally acclaimed mother and son, artist and writer, Delaine Le Bas (nominee for The Turner Prize 2024) and Damian Le Bas (Winner of Somerset Maugham Award 2019), will come together to reflect on shared themes that run through their work across visual art, writing, and lived experience, drawing on their shared Romani history and culture.
For anyone familiar with Delaine and Damian’s work, this is going to be an unmissable evening. To find out more go to essexbookfestival.org.uk/event/rags-ruins/.