A wealth of top female writers are getting ready to make an appearance at this year's Havant Literary Festival.
A woman's touch will be brought to the festival, now in its second year, by top authors Fay Weldon, Maggie Gee and the festival's official writer-in-residence, Stella Duffy. The literary editor of The Guardian, Claire Armitstead, will be examining the role of the critic and debut author Lucy Beresford will talk about her new book, Something I'm Not. Film historian Dr Amanda Field will talk about her new book, England's Secret Weapon – the Wartime Films of Sherlock Holmes, explaining how 1940s Hollywood recruited the quintessential Victorian detective to fight the Nazis. Crime newcomer Leigh Russell talks about her debut novel, Cut Short, the first of a series featuring DI Geraldine Steel. Children's author Sandra Horn, creator of Tattybogle, will appear at Havant Library.
And local writers Isabel Ashdown, Alex Bell and Yong Pease will feature in a panel discussion on writing for and about teenagers.
The festival will run for 10 days from September 25 to October 4 after the success of an inaugural four-day festival last year, which attracted 1,500 visitors at more than 40 events, making a £4,000 profit. The festival's artistic director, Lucy Flannery, said: 'We're very confident we can build on last year's success. We've got more big names and plenty of high calibre events across both weekends and during the week. 'We want to compete with the likes of Hay, Cheltenham and Edinburgh but still keep our hearts in the local community.
