The War’s Long Shadow

Left to right: Felice, Kylie, Frances and Michael. Photo: © Gill Harry

…at the Frome Festival

The Frome Festival takes place over a two-week period every July. It’s an arts festival filled with some amazing events, ranging from music, theatre and comedy, to food feasts, crafts workshops and literature.

I joined a panel themed on The War’s Long Shadow – Why Does The Second World War Continue to Fascinate Us? Three local writers from Frome Writers Collective were involved: myself, Frances Liardet (author of We Must Be Brave and Think of Me) and Michael Tasker Philips (author of Grace). As you can guess, all three of us have written books based on WW2. The panel was moderated by Kylie Fitzpatrick.

It was a fun evening and tickets completely sold out. There was plenty of audience participation, and our talk lasted for an hour with Q&A afterwards. We explored themes of survival, belonging and memory, and talked about creating truth in both fact and fiction through our writing.

Wednesday July 9th was one of those stiflingly warm evenings, so it was brave of everyone to turn up to listen at The Archangel, one of the oldest buildings in Frome that was first recorded as an inn in 1311.

My stand at Frome Publishing Fair. Photo: © F. Hardy

A few days earlier, on Saturday 5th July, I took a stand at Frome Publishing Fair, in the lovely Silk Mill Gallery. The fair is for writers, publishers, editors, illustrators and anyone involved in the publishing industry, and it’s been going for nine years. As always, it was a popular event and people came along to buy books and find out more about publishing services, even in the rain.

The three authors. Photo: © Hunting Raven Books, Frome