The Committee has now grown to a robust fourteen members and promises to be even more lively (and it was already lively!)

We’re working on a ‘Who We Are Page‘ to introduce the full crew. Until then, here’s a sprinkling of a few of those hardworking members!

(Click on the pics below to view larger)

Salley Vickers  author of ‘The Cleaner of Chartres’ and ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’

Damian Barr author of ‘Maggie and Me’, which will be serialized as Radio 4′s Book of the Week starting on April 29th

Patrick Gale author of ‘Notes from an Exhibition’ and ‘A Perfectly Good Man’

Jonathan Smith author of ‘Summer in February’ and of the screenplay of the film of that name, shot locally and scheduled for general release in June

Pippa Cross producer of the film of ‘Summer in February’

Chris Higgins author of ‘He’s After Me’, ‘The Day I met Suzie’ and The Secrets Club series

Ruth O’Callaghan • Angela France • Graham Burchell and other well-known poets

Plus an astonishing variety of brilliant local talent and guests from up-country.

Tickets will go on sale from June 1st. Watch this page and our Facebook page for further announcements!

Don’t forget the dates:

• Wednesday, July 17th to Sunday, July 21st•

Penzance is the urban centre of West Cornwall. As everyone knows, it is a small, coastal, characterful, end-of-the-line town. Less well-known is the fact that it and the surrounding area have a remarkably rich and flourishing literary life. Dozens of writers live in Penzance and the neighbouring small towns and villages, while in Penzance alone there are more than 25 reading groups. There is a deep-rooted story-telling tradition and there are thriving poetry groups. There are unique book collections in Penzance Public Library and in the Morrab Library, one of only 19 independent libraries in the UK, which has been acquiring book collections since 1818. And that’s just the ‘written word’ component of our literary life!

As you’ll gather, the Penzance Literary Festival is essentially a grass-roots community festival, put on by and for local people. Our Festival isn’t a small-scale version of Hay-on-Wye, and it’s emphatically not one of those festivals where local people give the town a wide berth while festival-goers take over. But we aren’t precious, we aren’t parochial, we aren’t inward-looking, and we aren’t exclusive. Guests from across the Tamar will be very welcome!

And if you would like to get the flavour of the Festival, take a look at last year’s programme: click below to download the pdf:

- Patrick Gale, ‘A Perfectly Good Man’

- Liz Fenwick, ‘The Cornish House’

- Tiffany Murray, ‘Diamond Star Halo’

- Sarah Winman, ‘When God Was a Rabbit’

- Jane Johnson, ‘The Sultan’s Wife’

- Will Eaves, ‘This is Paradise’

- Sarah Duncan, ‘Kissing Mr Wrong’

- Catherine McNamara, ‘The Divorced Lady’s Companion to Living in Italy’

and if your tastes stretch to autobiography, Michele Hanson’s ‘What the Grown-ups Were Doing’

 AND MAY WE REMIND YOU …

On Wednesday, May 23rd – The Acorn, at 7pm. The event? It’s the Penzance Literary Festival Association’s Annual General Meeting. We’ll be delighted to see you there!

PLFA is the organization behind the Litfest. It provides the movers and shakers and workers who have the ideas and make things happen. PLFA has a Chairperson, a Secretary, a Treasurer – we have to have these so PLFA can have a bank account! – but otherwise it’s a very ‘flat’, non-hierarchical organization (this being Penzance we don’t have anything so dignified as a ‘committee’). So, as befits an organization with its roots very firmly in the community, all members can have a say and contribute their skills, whether as specialists or as ‘foot-soldiers’ – in the planning stages, in the run-up to the Festival, and during the Festival itself. 

Our meetings have been described as combining purposefulness and good humour, and indeed most people find them both stimulating and fun.

We are now recruiting members for the 2012 season. The way to join is to come to the meeting on May 23rd bringing a £10 note which you are prepared to surrender by way of a subscription. (The tenners all go to meeting the costs of putting on the Festival.) What you get for your money is the satisfaction of being part of a worthwhile enterprise and a friendly team, plus a complimentary ticket to the Welcome Party on July 25th. Terrific value, surely!

So do come to the PLFA AGM on May 23rd! We’ll be delighted to see you!

Their loyal customers will be heaving a huge sigh of relief that David and Barbara have found purchasers who will continue to run Books Plus as a bookshop. We extend the warmest of welcomes to James and Rachael Howorth, who have come to Penzance from Kidderminster. May they take Books Plus from strength to strength!

We’re also honoured to announce that Patrick has recently accepted our invitation to be the Literary Festival’s Patron. He’ll be giving the opening talk at this year’s Litfest, on Wednesday, July 25th, at 11am in The Acorn Theatre. As well as talking about and reading from his new book, he’ll be happy to answer questions from his audience.