David Ebsworth - Wrexham Carnival of Words
Published: 11 May 2015 - updated: 28 Jul 2015
SilverWood's David Ebsworth gives us an insight into the success of The Wrexham Carnival of Words!
Wrexham has never had a literary festival. There are several others in the area - including Chester, Malpas and Oswestry - but none of them really catering for grass-roots encouragement of basic reading and writing in our communities. So I jumped at the chance, six months ago, of working with the team of volunteers from Wrexham’s Library Services, our Glyndŵr University, Waterstones, and local writers, to put together a week-long programme of events that we called the Wrexham Carnival of Words.
The Carnival itself ran from 18th - 25 April and included: a magical bus tour of local "literary" sites (H.G. Wells, Robert Graves, etc); an evening with local Rugby legend and autobiographer, Gareth Thomas; an event in which Young Adult writer, S.F. Said, ran a master-class for 250 school kids on writing; a short story competition for 11-15s, with wonderful prizes given to the short-listed entrants, and their stories read to a big public gathering, as part of World Book Night; an evening with Alan Johnson (120 people in the audience); a Poems and Pints session; a World Book Night Party and local author networking - as a result of which we now have a 40-strong Wrexham Writers Group; a Crime Writers master-class in which the audience had to solve a murder mystery; and a Doctor Who scriptwriters session.
We closed with Romans to Redcoats - a historical fiction extravaganza featuring SilverWood’s own Helen Hollick along with 7 other best-selling HF authors (Manda Scott, Angus Donald, Rob Low, Paula Brackston, James Aitcheson and Richard Denning) and historian Charles Evans-Gunther. And we also managed to pull off the technical miracle of a Skype link to the amazing and successful Pat Bracewell (Shadow on the Crown and The Price of Blood) in California. This was particularly exciting since the Skype session succeeded in introducing the audience to Emma of Normandy - one of Britain’s most interesting but neglected Queens (and also the subject of Helen Hollick’s novel, A Hollow Crown). Only a half-day event, but it generated the same level of excitement and fun that many of us have seen at the much larger Historical Novel Society Conference.
Both Helen Hollick and myself were specially pleased that SilverWood was listed on all the publicity materials as a sponsor of Romans to Redcoats. Since, I was on the organising committee, we were able to list my time as an "in-kind" donation and it added more gravitas to list this as a SilverWood contribution. Fair enough, I thought, given that we're all part of the SilverWood "team", and the idea of developing ourselves through festival activity very much stemmed from suggestions of others in the SilverWood Facebook Advice and Support Group. Just a couple of good examples showing the added value of belonging to the SilverWood community of writers.
Meanwhile, here in the Wrexham community, we’re still buzzing about the Carnival of Words and its outcomes. A Wrexham Writers Open Day is planned for early October and (brilliant news!) Wrexham Council and its Library Services have decided to make the Carnival itself an annual event.
“If you’re thinking of self-publishing, I hope you don't go at it alone. With a team like SilverWood behind you, you have the support you need to publish the best work you believe in.”
