An opportunity for young people to get involved in creating a new book podcast.

Are you aged 13-17 years and living in Essex?
Do you share a passion for books and podcasts?
Would you like to learn how to make your own podcast with a group of like-minded young people, and then broadcast it on Chelmsford Community Radio?

If you have answered “yes” to these three questions, then we have just the thing for you.

Essex Book Festival is teaming up with Chelmsford Community Radio on a new project, the Essex Book Worm Podcast, supported by Essex County Council’s Cultural Development Project Fund.

We are looking for 12 young people to devise, shape and present a new monthly 20-minute podcast talking all things books, including interviews with local authors/scriptwriters/poets, book reviews, quizzes.

Participants will learn how to create content, including vox pops, how to conduct an interview, how to edit and shape material, and finally, how to record a podcast for broadcast.

Still interested?

We are hosting two free training sessions on Saturday 19 and Saturday 26 September (10am-4pm) at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford, so we will be ready for our first broadcast in October. These sessions will be led by award-winning radio producer Michelle Durant from Chelmsford Community Radio, and writer/educator Emma Kittle-Pey.

If you would like to book you place, and / or find out more, please email hello@essexbookfestival.org.uk.

This project is supported by Essex County Council’s Cultural Development Project Fund.

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Capturing the key ideas from the events, Chris sketched and drew thoughout the day turning each of the sessions into a stunning, vivid, colourful visual summary.

Here are the brilliant illustrations he created:

Downfall of the Templars by Tony McMahon

Mythica by Emily Hauser

The Traitors Circle

Follow Christopher Fenwick on Instagram @christopherfenwick and find out more at www.fenwickstudio.co.uk.

The post Live Illustration at The History Books Day appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Who can resist one of the UK’s leading historians Alison Weir talking about the Boleyn family at Essex Record Office on Tuesday night.

Having said that, just across the road at Chelmsford Library we have Sunday Times and international best-selling author Sarah Vaughan (whose previous novel Anatomy of a Scandal became an instant smash-hit Netflix series), talking about her latest suspense novel Based On A True Story.

It’s going to be hard to choose between those two. The excellent news is that everyone should be home in time for the kick off of England vs. Ghana!

Our final two library event include two more best-selling writers: Vaseem Khan at Colchester Library on Wednesday night and Sophie Hannah at Witham Library on Thursday night.

Vaseem will be taking a deep dive into the world of James Bond with his new series The Q Mysteries, which centre on Major Boothroyd (aka Q), the gadget-maker for M16’s 00 agents.

Sophie, meanwhile, will be marking the 50th Anniversary of the Dorothy L Sayers Society with a talk about the hugely-popular murder-mystery genre, her own books included. The excellent news here is that tickets are still available for both of those events.

We are spreading the net wide over our final weekend with events taking place at Gibberd Garden and Harlow Museum and Gardens in Harlow and Layer Marney Tower near Colchester.

Anyone who is interested in The Knights Templar is in for a huge treat at Layer Marney Tower.

TV presenter and writer Tony McMahon is opening our History Books day on Sunday with a talk about his latest book Downfall of The Templars. For centuries, people have wondered what happened to the fabled treasure of the Templars, including the Holy Grail. Join Tony to find out more.

Tony will be followed by a British scholar of classics and a historical fiction novelist Emily Hauser who has been on a quest of her own.

This time we will travel even further back in time to ancient Greece as Emily reveals the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends – and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

Wrapping up the day we have Radio 4 presenter and Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland talking about his latest book The Traitor’s Circle, which details the true story of the Solf Circle—a secret, high-society group of German intellectuals, aristocrats, and diplomats who secretly opposed Adolf Hitler and were betrayed from within.

Those with a passion for the visual arts have a treat in store at Gibberd Garden on Sunday with British painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling talking to art critic and novelist James Cahill about the new monograph Maggi Hambling which marks her 80th birthday.

Followed by fellow British artist and writer Darren Coffield talking about his biography of Henrietta Moraes, the muse of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, and final muse and lover of Maggi Hambling. Our first event with Maggi and James is already sold out but tickets are still available for Darren’s event.

Again, it is going to be difficult choosing between Layer Marney Tower and The Gibberd Garden!

Finally, if the festival has whet your appetite to get cracking on your own novel, book your place on Saturday morning at Harlow Museum for our final writing workshop of the festival, this time led by best-selling Essex author Syd Moore. Syd will also be talking about her own book The Great Deception at Harlow Museum later in the day.

Keep cool and hydrated. And, most importantly, keep reading…

The post The Final Week appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

The question is: Have you booked your tickets for next Saturday’s special day of activities at Lakeside Theatre (University of Essex), which is taking place in collaboration with the Centre for Creative Writing, under the collective banner of The Writers Room?

One of the highlights of this year’s Essex Book Festival, we can’t wait to welcome writers from as far afield as Syria and Namibia, to as close to home as Wivenhoe and Halstead, to join us for a series of intriguing and challenging conversations.

Celebrating the 100th centenary of the birth of J.A. Baker, a pioneer of nature writing born in Chelmsford, is a big part of the day.

This includes a Writing the Archive Workshop led by Dr Andrew Burton, where participants will be invited to dip into the J.A. Baker archive based in the University’s Special Collections for inspiration.

There will be an intriguing panel Nature Memoir: What Next? led by James Canton (author of The Oak Papers and Renaturing) and including Chloe Hadjimatheou, the Observer’s Narrative Editor who broke the incredible story behind the best-selling memoir and film The Salt Path, and Creative Writing student, Helen Oliver-Masters.

Then later in the day we are welcoming London-based The Cabinet of Living Cinema to the Lakeside Theatre for the world premiere of its new film: How To Become A Peregrine, which, based on J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine, will be accompanied by a soaring and immersive live soundscape composed by composer Kieron Chissik.

Also included in the day is our panel discussion: Freedom to Write, Freedom to Read, Freedom to Move led by English PEN. Never has it felt more important to support writers from marginalised communities, particularly writers who are no longer able to live in their home country.

This includes panellist Khaled Alesmael, one of our international writers-in-residence 2026: a Syrian queer writer who had a long career in journalism before being forced to flee Syria, and who now lives and works in London.

Khaled began his career as a radio journalist and writer of children’s poetry for major Arabic broadcasters, before working as a journalist across the Arab world and Europe. Most recently, his debut novel Selamlik (translated from the Arabic by Leri Price) is in development as an art house film, while his second book, which queers the Arab Spring, bears witness to the lives of nine queer Arabs. An English translation is forthcoming from World Editions in 2027.

For more information about our other three panellists joining Khaled for the Freedom to Writer, Freedom to Read, Freedom to Move panel go to essexbookfestival.org.uk/event/freedom-to-read-freedom-to-write-freedom-to-move/.

The post Celebrating J.A. Baker appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

We have a wonderful line-up of authors and events on the menu for this week. We are particularly excited about our three library events with three Sunday Times best-selling authors:

Lesley Kara who will be talking about her latest psychological thriller Troublemaker, as heard on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, at Gray’s Library on Tuesday;

Leading geopolitics expert and journalist Tim Marshall who will be talking about his new edition of Prisoners of Geography at Waltham Abbey Library on Wednesday night;

And finally, the wonderful multimillion-copy bestselling author B.A Paris who will be talking about her latest nail-biting book When I Kill You at South Woodham Ferrers Library on Thursday night.

Tim’s event is already sold out but there are tickets available for Lesley Kara and B.A. Paris.

We’re also really excited to have Siân Hughes, author of the Booker-longlisted and The Authors Club Best First Novel, Pearl, come and talk about her new novel No Such Thing as Monday at Colchester Samaritans Community Centre on Saturday afternoon, following on from Sarah Perry’s event.

No Such Thing as Monday is a full of heart, raw and exhilarating book, that confirms Hughes as a masterful chronicler of life lived on the edge, and people at their most vulnerable.

Anywhere But Here

Talking of people at their most vulnerable, and looking forward to later in the month, we are delighted to be teaming up with Chelmsford Cathedral to welcome award-winning investigative journalist and former Home Office insider Nicola Kelly to the Cathedral on Saturday 20 June to talk Festival Chair Peter Donaldson about her new book Anywhere But Here: How Britain’s Broken Asylum System Fails Us All.

Situated on the beaches and the ports, in the hotels, the courtrooms and the detention centres where the futures of those affected unfold, this is a searing investigation into one of the most urgent issues of our time.

In the words of Caroline Lucas, author of Another England:

‘Beautifully written, bold and brave, ‘Anywhere but Here’ painstakingly separates the reality from the all too frequently toxic rhetoric. A copy should be on every desk not just in the Home Office, but throughout government. A brilliant and hugely timely book.’

The post And We’re Off appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

While most of our ticketed events for families are now sold out, there are still spaces available to join children’s author Sade Fadipe’s The Art Of Playfulness – a writing workshop for grown-ups on how to write a children’s book, inspired by Kes Gray’s ongoing Oi Chelmsford! exhibition at the Museum.

We are also running two complimentary drop-in, hands-on eco-workshops for young people offering an opportunity to have a go at eco-printing using ink made from Essex oak galls, and to write a letter to the future – whatever form that takes – which will become part of a county-wide Young Ones zine.

Come along any time between 12.00pm and 3.00pm to take part in the eco-workshops.

Tickets are free but you will need to book a ticket to gain free entry to the Museum of Chelmsford.

The post Half term fun at Oi Chelmsford! appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Sarah Perry’s father-in-law David died in the autumn of 2022, only nine days after a cancer diagnosis. Until then he’d been a healthy and happy man: he loved stamp-collecting, fish and chips, comic novels, his local church, and the Antiques Roadshow. He was in some ways a very ordinary man, but as he began to die, it became clear how extraordinary he was.

Sarah and her husband Robert nursed David themselves at home. They bathed and cleaned and dressed him, comforted him in pain, sat with him through waking and sleeping, talked to him, sang to him, prayed with him. Day-by-day and hour by hour, they witnessed what happens to the body and spirit as death approaches and finally arrives.

This is not a book about grief: it is about family, and care and love. In the words of writer Rachel Clarke “Please read this book. It may very well change how you live.”

Another Essex author to look out for during the Festival is Lesley Kara, best-selling author of The Rumour (the UK’s bestselling crime fiction debut in 2019 and Channel 5’s adaptation – starring Emily Atack and Rachel Shenton aired in late 2025).

Lesley, who was also born and grew up in Chelmsford, will be talking to fellow Essex author Christine Penhall about her sharp and incisive new novel Troublemaker at Grays Library on Tuesday 2 June. Troublemaker is a masterful psychological thriller which asks: how do you solve a murder when no one believes it took place? How indeed!

Then, of course, we have another best-selling novelist, former television presenter and activist Syd Moore, again also born in Essex, coming to Harlow Museum on the 27 June to talk about her latest novel The Great Deception. Set in Iceland, The Great Deception conjures a world of espionage, mystery and illusion in a war-torn world. Syd is also running Writing the Archive Workshop using the Museum’s collection as inspiration.

Essex Book Festival launches this week so if you have your eye on an event or two, now is the time to get booking!

The post Home Grown Authors appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Both Rémy and Khaled will be taking part in our Freedom to Read, Freedom to Write, Freedom to Move panel curated by English PEN, and chaired by Turkish Cypriot writer and multidisciplinary artist from North London Tice Cin.

This panel forms part of our The Writers Room, which will be taking place at the University of Essex on Saturday 13 June. The programme includes author talks and workshops, multi-genre panel discussions, and The Pitch (a 10-minute speed-date with an industry professional). Plus, an opportunity to engage with and explore the J.A. Baker Archive.

The post From the Local to the International appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

One event not to be missed is our Know Your Beach Workshop (BSL signed), which is taking place between 10am-12pm on Clacton Beach, led by Libby Scarfe from Sea Explorers.

Our young participants will be looking for treasures that the seaside has to offer to inspire some creative art from around the world. Followed by salty storytelling and the promise of some marina mischief.

It suits 5-11 years but everyone is welcome to join in.

The Human Library is coming to Clacton!

Just like in a real library, a visitor to the Human Library can borrow a book from a range of titles. The difference is that books are PEOPLE, and reading is a CONVERSATION.

Books in our Human Library come from all walks of life, and each has an experience to share. Come along, connect with people you wouldn’t normally meet, and celebrate positive differences in our communities.

Want to be a Human Book?

Do you defy a stereotype? Are you like an open book and do you have valuable experiences that readers could benefit from learning about? Are you motivated to help challenge stigma and stereotypes through dialogue and personal conversations? Then maybe we can publish you to our readers.

Find out more at https://essexcdp.com/event/human-library-clacton/

The post The Human Library is coming to Clacton! appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

The special relationship that the Guardian’s John Crace has with the corridors of power in Westminster, mixed with his irresistibly acerbic humour, makes Anglia Ruskin University an absolute must on Friday 29 May.

The same applies for our launch event with Simon Kuper and Jonathan Wilson: two sportswriters with their fingers on the pulse of the Beautiful Game who will bring the World Cup well and truly into focus on Thursday 28 May at Colchester United Community Stadium.

In other news, we’re thrilled to be welcoming back cultural historian Ken Worpole to the festival. This time to The Commons Community Kitchen & Café in Colchester on Wednesday 10 June at our Common Treasures event.

Ken will be joining writer/planner/architect Hana Loftus and architect Giles Smith, co-founder of Assemble Collective (Winner of Turner Prize: 2015), to discuss the Common Treasures project, which brings together practical responses to contemporary challenges in rural communities.

Tickets are limited for this event, so again, do get booking now if you would like to come along on the night.

And again, in terms of ticket availability, tickets are running low for our festival finale in Harlow’s Gibberd Garden on Sunday 28 June.

Anyone planning to come to our event with British artist Maggi Hambling and writer James Cahill are advised to get booking now.

This will be followed by fellow British artist/writer Darren Coffield talking to James Cahill about his latest book Hen, Mistress of Mayhem: A Portrait of Henrietta Moraes.

Told from the perspective of the women who knew Henrietta, including Maggi Hambling the last person to paint her – rather than the famous male artists such as Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud who also painted her – Darren’s event is going to be a very special event in one of Essex’s most beautiful secret gardens.

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