Here are few that we are implementing in line with our partners at Essex and Thurrock Libraries, Layer Marney Tower, Chelmsford Theatres, and Explore Essex (The Story Hunters Project Workshops and Festival Finale)

We are following government guidance as it stands for all our events until told differently, this means we decided that we would sell all events at the reduced capacity from the outset.

All seating in the all venues will be socially distanced, this will happen for all of our July events, to give you confidence and is our standard protocol moving forward. It will have been sanitised prior to your arrival.

We will encourage you to wear masks if you are inside until we are told otherwise. Our team will all be in them unless medically exempt, you will also be asked to hand sanitize on entry.

All our attendees will be asked to track and trace on arrival, so allow good time to get in to venues, and if you are having to queue, we ask you to respect everyones space so that everyone feels comfortable.

We ask you to arrive in your groups that you booked with, and with other friends, that way we can show you to your seats and you will be close by! We know its a new experience and we want you to feel comfortable, but we are likely to seat in rows as you arrive, rather than the free flow that has happened previously. Once in your seat we would ask that you remain there unless you require to use the toilets.

Many venues will operate a one way policy, but this will be clearly signed.

Books will be sold, we are working to make this as easy as possible, and will be carried out in a socially distanced way.

We will have our teams to hand, within the Libraries the volunteers will be Library based as they understand the space. For the larger venues, Layer Marney Tower, Chelmsford Theatres and The Festival Finale at Cressing Temple Barns, you will see our festival bookies, who will have completed the in house COVID-secure training and will be there to guide you to your events, check you in and be there if you need.

We want you to feel safe, we want you to enjoy yourself and get lost in books.
Don’t forget #wordsmatter

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Bookshop.org is an online bookshop with a mission to financially support local, independent bookshops.We believe that bookshops are essential to a healthy culture.

They’re where authors can connect with readers, where we discover new writers, where children get hooked on the thrill of reading that can last a lifetime. They’re also anchors for our high streets and communities.

Bookshop.org works with independent bookshops across the UK to provide online bookshop facilities to the independent booksellers. Together they are able to bring you your books, cutting out the big corporations and taking it straight to the local shop.

On our microsite https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/essexbookfestival, we have started compiling lists that make it easy to find the book you are looking for!!

In the process, the purchase pushes the business to the independents who have your book local to you and send it out, saving the planet at the same time.

Please pop over and check it out, get involved – if you have a book you think we should have let us know via the website supporting the local Independent booksellers and growing Writers and Authors readership is one of our passions.

The post Essex Book Festival Bookshop appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

To support this we are also giving you an opportunity to participate in one of the 4 Story Hunters Writing Workshop at 4 of the 20 chosen locations.

If you are interested – Have a look at

27.6.21 – Danbury Park with Jon Crane

3.7.21 Cressing Temple Barns with Agnieszka Dale

11.7.21 Jaywick Martello Tower with A.K Blakemore

18.7.21 Hadleigh Country Park with Glenys Newton and Majid Adin

As the stories are submitted to the competition they will appear on our specially designed webpage, the competition and more details will follow when we launch the webpage in a few weeks…

The post The Story Hunters Project appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

We launched The Essex Read in 2018, a project that harnesses the power of reading to bring people together. We want to encourage the whole of Essex, whether lone reader or part of a book club, to be reading the same book: The Oak Papers by James Canton.

 
James Canton is a nature and travel writer who leads the MA in Wild Writing at University of Essex. His writing focuses on the ties between nature, literature and the environment. For this book, James spent two years sitting with and studying the ancient Honywood Oak. Blending personal experience with cultural legacy, The Oak Papers is a meditative and healing book about the lessons we can learn from the natural world, if only we slow down enough to listen.

“An enchanting piece of nature writing and a meditation on finding connection in a disconnected world” 

Independent

Find out more about The Oak Papers https://jamescanton.co.uk/books/the-oak-papers/
Buy the book at https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-oak-papers/9781838851507

We invite you to come together to discuss and share your thoughts about the book. James Canton will be sharing his thoughts, leading walks and workshops in July 2021.

The post Celebrating The Essex Read 2021 appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Listen again here 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000h6pr

Other essays in the series are:

• Washed Up in Essex – Writer AL Kennedy takes us on a watery journey through the county she now calls home.
  
• The Refusal of Place – Writer Lavinia Greenlaw takes us back to the formative landscape of her childhood.
  
• Brightening from the East – Writer and social historian Ken Worpole introduces us to Essex’s radical past.
  
• Writer Gillian Darley celebrates the unsung and lesser-known delights of Mid Essex.
  

Find out more and listen to the series here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h6ps

The post Odes to Essex Five Essex-lovers reclaim the county that they grew up in or now call home. appeared first on Essex Book Festival.