It seems a long time ago that we all met up for our First Monday Crime Summer Spectacular – two months to be precise! And we won’t be seeing you again until Monday 7th October! Don’t despair though. There are some fantastic literary festivals on in September to keep you going until your monthly dose of First Monday Crime is back. There’s bound to be more things happening but I’d like to highlight five festivals.
First up – Chiswick Book Festival. I’ve been to this festival a few times now and it was the first one I ever attended. So it’s quite special to me. It’s a bit smaller than other festivals but it puts on a lot and has a wide variety of authors from historical to cookery to crime. Plus they’ve introduced workshops for budding writers too. Rather than giving you a long list of authors, I’ll just give you a few familiar First Monday names – Phoebe Morgan, Peter Hanington, Mark Billingham with Linwood Barclay, Amer Anwar, Angela Clarke and Deborah O’Connor. The Chiswick Book Festival runs 12-16th September.
On at the same time (12-15th) is Noirwich. So if East Anglia is closer to you than London then this may be for you. FM authors you can expect to see are Erin Kelly, Leye Adenle, Sarah Hilary, Vaseem Khan, Simone Buchholz, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Mick Herron and Claire McGowan.
Now we mover further north to Stirling and Bloody Scotland. I’ve heard so many great things about this festival and I hope to go one day. Apart from the fantastic panels there’s the torchlight parade and a bit of sport with the annual England vs Scotland football match. Authors to look out for include Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley, Chris Brookmyre, our ‘hostess with the mostess’ Marnie Riches, Mary Paulson Ellis, Johanna Gustawsson and Doug Johnstone. Bloody Scotland is 20th-22nd September.
Coming back down but staying north of Watford, we have Morecambe and Vice. If there was ever a competition for the best named Crime writing festival, surely Morecambe and Vice would have to win. This festival has only been going for a couple of years and will be on 28-29th September. Not sure if there’ll be any comedy routines but William Shaw, Gytha Lodge, Quentin Bates, Lin Anderson, Adam Croft and Robert Daws will all be there to entertain you.
Last but absolutely not least, the inaugural Capital Crime. As the name suggests, we’re back in London for this festival. Created by Adam Handy and David Headley, there is an impressive amount of authors to see on 26-28th September. Here are some of the authors who’ve been with us at First Monday – John Connolly, Ann Cleeves, Mark Billingham, Mark Edwards, Peter James, Antonia Hodgson, Stuart Turton, Fiona Barton, Sarah Pinborough, Sophie Hannah, Fiona Cummins, Will Dean… it goes on forever! And then there’s also Robert Harris, Kate Atkinson, Don Winslow, David Baldacci, Lynda La Plante, Ian Rankin, Martina Cole… As you can imagine, with all these authors, there are two tracks of panels to choose from.
Click on the names of the festivals to find out more details and to book.
So plenty there to keep you occupied until we’re back in October. We’re busy planning the new season for you and will let you know who’s coming soon. Enjoy the rest of the summer and happy reading!
joykluver 