The Creative Folkestone Book Festival is an annual event held in
Folkestone
Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, England. The 2021 edition is scheduled to be held 4–13 June 2021.
History
The festival was founded as the Kent Literature Festival in 1980, before being rebadged as the Folkestone Literary Festival in 2002, when it grew in prominence under the auspices of the Creative Foundation - now
Creative Folkestone
Creative Folkestone (formerly The Creative Foundation), is a UK charity dedicated to art and culture, based in Folkestone, Kent, UK.
It is responsible for the Creative Folkestone Triennial, the Quarterhouse (a theatre and event space) and Folkes ...
.
In 2005 local people were encouraged to engage with the Festival through the formation of the Friends of the Book Festival. In 2006,
Hay Festival
The Hay Festival of Literature & Arts, better known as the Hay Festival ( cy, Gŵyl Y Gelli), is an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales, for 10 days from May to June. Devised by Norman, Rhoda and Peter Florence in 1988, t ...
Director,
Peter Florence
Peter Kenrick Florence CBE (born 4 October 1964) is a British festival director, most notable for founding the Hay Festival with his father and mother, Norman Florence and Rhoda Lewis, funding the first festival with winnings from a poker game.
...
, was commissioned to produce a plan to further develop the Festival, which helped to attract star names including high profile participants have included
Ben Okri
Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian-British poet and novelist.Ben Okri" British Council, ...
,
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his distinguished entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and tw ...
,
Beryl Bainbridge
Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge (21 November 1932 – 2 July 2010) was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. Bainbridge won the ...
,
Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak ( tr, Elif Şafak, ; born 25 October 1971) is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, public speaker, political scientist and activist.
Shafak writes in Turkish and English, and has published 19 works. She is best known for her n ...
,
Margaret Drabble
Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, (born 5 June 1939) is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer.
Drabble's books include '' The Millstone'' (1965), which won the following year's John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and ''Jer ...
,
Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan, (born 21 June 1948) is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of th ...
,
Ted Hughes
Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...
and
P.D. James
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring t ...
.
The festival was rebranded as Folkestone Book Festival in 2009, moved from September to November and found a new permanent home in Folkestone’s Quarterhouse at the heart of the town's Creative Quarter.
The 2018 event was billed as the most international ever, with 50 events, and including an Indian night, an American day, and a Turkish night.
As a result of the global
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, the Creative Folkestone Book Festival was postponed in 2020 and replaced with Autumn Reads, a four-day festival inspired by the diaries of filmmaker
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English artist, film maker, costume designer, stage designer, writer, gardener and gay rights activist.
Biography
Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing Home ...
following the acquisition of Jarman’s
Prospect Cottage
Prospect Cottage is a house on the coast in Dungeness (headland), Dungeness, Kent. Originally a Victorian fisherman's hut, the house was purchased by director and artist Derek Jarman in 1987, and was his home until his death in 1994.
Jarman bou ...
at nearby Dungeness by the
Art Fund
Art Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund) is an independent membership-based British charity, which raises funds to aid the acquisition of artworks for the nation. It gives grants and acts as a channel for many gifts and bequests, as ...
.
Dates for the 2021 Book Festival were announced in March 2021 after a year's hiatus as a result of the pandemic. Returning to the 2019 Book Festival theme and title of "The Shape of Things to Come" and inspired by the ideas and thoughts of former Folkestone resident,
Laura Bates
Laura Bates (born 27 August 1986, Oxford) is an English feminist writer. She founded the Everyday Sexism Project website in April 2012. Her first book, ''Everyday Sexism'', was published in 2014.
Biography
Bates' parents are Diane Elizabet ...
,
Luke Harding
Luke Daniel Harding (born 21 April 1968) is a British journalist who is a foreign correspondent for ''The Guardian''. He was based in Russia for ''The Guardian'' from 2007 until, returning from a stay in the UK on 5 February 2011, he was refu ...
,
David Lammy
David Lindon Lammy (born 19 July 1972) is an English politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Tottenh ...
, Nick Bryant and
Natalie Haynes
Natalie Louise Haynes (born 1974) is an English writer, broadcaster, classicist, and comedian.
Early life
Haynes was born in Birmingham, where she attended King Edward VI High School for Girls. She read Classics at Christ's College, Cambridge, ...
. The 2021 Festival will also feature a headline event, Beckett in Folkestone, an immersive multimedia experience celebrating
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...
’s connections with Folkestone.
Past festival curator/directors
*2002-2008 – ''
Saga Magazine
Saga is a British company focused on serving the needs of those aged 50 and over. It has 2.7 million customers. The company operates sites on the Kent and Sussex coast: Enbrook Park and Priory Square. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
...
s editor, Emma Soames, and then by its contributing editor, Camilla Swift.
*2009-2011 – Roberta Spicer: Festivals and Programming Manager.
*2012-2018 – Geraldine D’Amico
*2019-present - Seán Doran and Liam Browne, a duo who partner under the banner DoranBrowne, which runs the Arts Over Borders programme in Ireland. The theme of ‘The Shape Of Things To Come’ was inspired by author,
Saga
is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Square Enix. The series originated on the Game Boy in 1989 as the creation of Akitoshi Kawazu at Square (video game company), Square. It has since continued across multiple platforms, ...
sponsored the Festival from 2002 up until 2006 and has funded prizes including The Saga Prize for Wit and Humour (for writers over 50 years old, with a £20,000 prize). Principal sponsor for the 2021 Creative Folkestone Book Festival is the independent news discovery platform, News Now, with additional support provided by the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust,
Arts Council England
Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...
,
Folkestone & Hythe District Council
Folkestone and Hythe is a local government district in Kent, England, in the south-east of the county. Its council is based in the town of Folkestone. The authority was renamed from Shepway in April 2018, and therefore has the same name as the ...
,
Kent County Council
Kent County Council is a county council that governs most of the county of Kent in England. It is the upper tier of elected local government, below which are 12 district councils, and around 300 town and parish councils. The county council h ...
, the EU Interreg North Sea Region Cupido programme and educational partners,
Canterbury Christ Church University
, mottoeng = The truth shall set you free
, established = 2005 – gained University status 1962 – teacher training college
, type = Public
, religious_affiliation = Church of England
, city ...