Festival Programme
We'll announce our full line up of seven non-fiction authors in May.
If you sign up for updates, we'll email you the moment tickets go on sale. Nearer the time, we'll also email you with a reminder about practical matters such as parking, and where you might buy lunch. The venue serves coffee and snacks. Those on our mailing list will be able to book their places first, so stand the best chance of seeing the authors they most want to see.
Leiston Book Festival
Saturday 7th September 2024 | Leiston Film Theatre
11.30am
Details Coming Soon
Full line up details in May
£10
All seven sessions £60
12.30pm
Details Coming Soon
Full line up details in May
£10
All seven sessions £60
1.30pm
£10
All seven sessions £60
3.30pm
Details Coming Soon
Full line up details in May
£10
All seven sessions £60
Get a discounted book with every ticket!
Each ticket entitles the holder to a £5 discount on one book purchased on the day (£60 tickets will entitle the holder to a £5 discount on up to six books)
Patrick Galbraith
Speaking at 10.30am
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.
Richard Hawking
Speaking at 1.30pm
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 Notebookwere published in 2021 and 2023 respectively, with the Summer and Autumn editions published in May and September this year.
Robert Ashton
Speaking at 2.30pm
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.
Jules Pretty
Speaking at 4.30pm
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.
