I just spent a lovely sunny weekend as a volunteer at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival, mainly as their (wo)man on the ground tweeter, and had a great time.
The festival is only in its second year but it already has a huge fan base and had some big names authors, including Lionel Shriver, Fern Britton, Richard Dawkins and Val McDermid. Working with a variety of local partners, the small committee are able to put on a great event and I was glad to be involved as one of the many eager volunteers.
I started work on the Friday which was the day that the festival sent children's authors, including Sarah McIntyre and Susie Day, into some of the local primary schools where they gave really exciting talks featuring, among other things, swords and superheroes. I didn't go out to the schools but was in charge of coordinating everything, making sure the right author went to right school in the right car with the right volunteer. So that took some doing but, except for one missing author scare, everything worked out alright. The best bit about the day for me was getting to settle down in the corner of Jaffe & Neale bookshop with unlimited tea organising and tweeting and looking at the books. If you ever have
The festival is only in its second year but it already has a huge fan base and had some big names authors, including Lionel Shriver, Fern Britton, Richard Dawkins and Val McDermid. Working with a variety of local partners, the small committee are able to put on a great event and I was glad to be involved as one of the many eager volunteers.
I started work on the Friday which was the day that the festival sent children's authors, including Sarah McIntyre and Susie Day, into some of the local primary schools where they gave really exciting talks featuring, among other things, swords and superheroes. I didn't go out to the schools but was in charge of coordinating everything, making sure the right author went to right school in the right car with the right volunteer. So that took some doing but, except for one missing author scare, everything worked out alright. The best bit about the day for me was getting to settle down in the corner of Jaffe & Neale bookshop with unlimited tea organising and tweeting and looking at the books. If you ever have
a day to kill and are near Chipping Norton I heartily recommend it, and I didn't even try the cake.
So after a periodically stressful and relaxing first day I headed back to the festival on Saturday in my official role as "social media person". Ipad (other tablets are available) in hand and with my "special" lanyard around my neck I set off to tweet everything I saw. I was allowed into any talk that had space for me so I could tweet quotes, snippets and photos. This meant over the weekend I got to see a range of famous faces from Downton Abbey's Julian Fellowes to Me Before You Author Jojo Moyes. All of them were amazing. Everyone was so passionate about not only their books, which they were obviously promoting, but books in general and it was great to see fans get a chance to meet some of their literary loves at the signings afterwards. As usual, my volunteer position meant I headed to talks I wouldn't have gone to otherwise and ended up learning about extreme travel and near death experiences, behind the scenes gossip from This Morning, saucy secrets from the past and watched a very interesting debate about Pippa Middleton's culinary career.
That was what was so great about this festival, there was such a range of people there. To use a cliché, there was something for everyone. And it wasn't just author talks and panel discussions. There were loads of great events for kids and loads of workshops for aspiring authors on how to self-publish, how to get an author, how to use social media to promote yourself and how to write erotic scenes, among other things.
So I got to 7pm on Sunday and I was exhausted but I had had a great time. It's really impressive how big an event can be put on by such a small group of people but they are all so passionate about it they make it work. And everyone is so friendly. There was such a great sense of community around this event that is lacking at some of the big festivals like Oxford and Cheltenham. So a big thanks to everyone in Chipping Norton for making me feel, well, special...
So after a periodically stressful and relaxing first day I headed back to the festival on Saturday in my official role as "social media person". Ipad (other tablets are available) in hand and with my "special" lanyard around my neck I set off to tweet everything I saw. I was allowed into any talk that had space for me so I could tweet quotes, snippets and photos. This meant over the weekend I got to see a range of famous faces from Downton Abbey's Julian Fellowes to Me Before You Author Jojo Moyes. All of them were amazing. Everyone was so passionate about not only their books, which they were obviously promoting, but books in general and it was great to see fans get a chance to meet some of their literary loves at the signings afterwards. As usual, my volunteer position meant I headed to talks I wouldn't have gone to otherwise and ended up learning about extreme travel and near death experiences, behind the scenes gossip from This Morning, saucy secrets from the past and watched a very interesting debate about Pippa Middleton's culinary career.
That was what was so great about this festival, there was such a range of people there. To use a cliché, there was something for everyone. And it wasn't just author talks and panel discussions. There were loads of great events for kids and loads of workshops for aspiring authors on how to self-publish, how to get an author, how to use social media to promote yourself and how to write erotic scenes, among other things.
So I got to 7pm on Sunday and I was exhausted but I had had a great time. It's really impressive how big an event can be put on by such a small group of people but they are all so passionate about it they make it work. And everyone is so friendly. There was such a great sense of community around this event that is lacking at some of the big festivals like Oxford and Cheltenham. So a big thanks to everyone in Chipping Norton for making me feel, well, special...
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