Key Dates for 2015 Flamstead Book Festival

The Flamstead Book Festival is back for 2015 with a big bang!

The full programme will be published on Saturday 19th April, initially on our website http://www.flamsteadbookfestival.com, along with information about buying tickets.

Tickets will go on sale a week later, on Saturday 25th April.

The Festival itself – Books in the Belfry – will be held on Friday evening June 5th and all day Saturday June 6th, with a great line-up of top names. The main venue is the historic setting of St.Leonard’s Church, Flamstead, Hertfordshire.

Best-selling authors Jane Hawking and Sophie Hannah will headline the Festival. Hawking, who was Stephen Hawking’s wife for 25 years, penned Travelling to Infinity which was adapted for this year’s Oscar-winning film The Theory of Everything. Jane – in one of her few appearances this year – will talk about her moving account of love and loss with the celebrated scientist as well as what it was like for her marriage to be played out on film.

The Festival will kick off on the evening of Friday June 5 with thriller-writer Sophie Hannah, whose novels have been adapted for ITV’s Case Sensitive series. Her most recent work – The Monogram Murders – is the first approved Hercule Poirot novel since Agatha Christie’s death.

The line-up also features acclaimed children and young person’s author Alex Scarrow, best known for his Time Riders series.

There will also be some favourites from last year, including a sports writing session with a chance to quiz pundits about that evening’s Champions League final and the forthcoming Rugby World Cup, story-telling for toddlers, a children’s workshop, a gardeners’ tea time and an adult writers workshop.

Festival spokesman and Flamstead resident Vikki Orvice said: “We’re excited about the line-up and hope as many people as possible in the area will once again support Books in the Belfry”.

Waterstones in St.Albans is supporting the Festival and will be selling books on both days. You will also be able to meet the authors and get books signed.

Proceeds will help support the Friends of St.Leonards (FOSL) to raise funds for the repair work to safeguard the medieval wall-paintings in the village church.

[This is an abridged but updated version of a longer piece that can be read on the website at http://www.flamsteadbookfestival.com/?p=178906]