The Lit Fest Newsletter
Hi everyone, summer is finally upon us. At this point I would normally be finalising the last few details of the Free University of Glastonbury, a literary programme (see above) I set up at the famous pop festival with my friend Simon ten years ago. Our line-up was all booked before Covid intervened . . .
Glastonbury is possibly the biggest festival in the UK, but one of the things I love most about literary festivals is that they can be successfully run from the smallest of places. One of those places is Shute in Devon, and I’m delighted to able to bring you an interview with one the founders of Shute’s literary festival, Samantha Knights. I am sure her experiences will resonate with many of you . . .
Could you tell us a little but about Shute?
Shute is a tiny hamlet in East Devon with about 600 residents scattered throughout the parish. It was once the seat of the Carew-Pole family and has a wonderful medieval manor house now owned by the National Trust, a Tudor Gatehouse now owned by the Landmark Trust, and a lovely ancient church which is the normal venue for our Festival. It is set amid rolling hills, wooded valleys, and close to the Jurassic Coast. In short it is a magical area but one which is off the beaten track in terms of tourists.
How did the festival come about?
Three of us locals: myself, crime fiction writer and psychotherapist Paddy Magrane and writer and historian Bijan Omrani, were sitting in 2016 over a glass of wine and realised just how many creative minds lived within a short distance—and we thought why not do a literary festival? And here we are five festivals later.
What did you learn in your first year?
Festivals are very hard work in terms of planning, quite frenetic whilst they are happening, but are also incredible in terms of bringing different people together and generating energy and a buzz.
How has the festival developed?
It has grown organically but we have remained, I hope, true to our roots. It is very much about community and local people, as well as being connected to our surrounding landscape. A number of our speakers are always from the area albeit big names eg Anna Pavord, Sir Ghillean Prance and Annie Freud to name a few. Our tea and cake is home made and served in real cups and saucers by our wonderful local helpers. We have run an entirely free children's programme each year in our local school grounds alongside the Festival and also funded an outreach programme in the local primary school which has included an Art Club and Wild Club last year. We have also funded ad hoc events at the school such as a Bollywood dance workshop, creative writing and calligraphy workshops which the children have loved. But we are now finally in a position where we can pay each of our writer speakers, have a profile for high quality events in an intimate venue and have an audience now who have returned to the Festival every year.
How has the festival done financially? How have you structured the organisation?
We have made a small profit every year from the first which has been channelled back into our local community - the church building and the outdoor areas of the school. We are set up as a not for profit unincorporated association with two directors. We have no employees but have in the past been able to pay for some ad hoc administrative help and some help with marshalling on the day. But mostly we rely on local volunteers to assist.
How have you involved the local community?
They come and enjoy; the school benefits enormously in terms of donations, outreach and the children's programme; they volunteer; and most importantly, a small but loyal band of locals - mainly women - make tea, coffee and cakes which they sell to raise additional money for the church buildings.
When did you realise that this year's festival was not going to happen as you envisaged?
It was fairly obvious in early March to us that it couldn't go ahead as a physical Festival.
What have you got planned for this year now?
We have instead put on a completely free live online programme of events. Most of our planned speakers have been delighted to do events in the webinar format, and we have added some additional events. We ask for donations but most of all we want people to tune in, engage and buy books via our local indy bookshop Archway Bookshop which has been a partner throughout.
What is the most rewarding thing about running a literary festival?
Hearing, seeing and feeling the energy of young and old alike during the three days.
Have there been any authors that you would recommend every festival should book?
I have loved all of our authors and wouldn't want to single out any one over another. From the outset, we have been really keen to bring diversity into our Festival in the form of ideas, speakers and topics. But if you really push me on an event it would probably be the screening of the film Free Men about the life of a young black artist on death row, Kenny Reams. Kenny then called in from his cell in Arkansas to do a Q&A after the film with the audience. You could have heard a pin drop.
What are you currently reading?
Our Bodies Their Battlefield by Sunday Times war correspondent Christina Lamb. It is a hugely important book about women, war and rape. Christina is speaking at the Festival this year on June 25, 6 pm. All welcome - details will go up on www.shutefest.org.uk soon.
Does anyone know of a place smaller than Shute that has its own festival? I would love to hear about it - mathew@bookamp.co.uk
Further afield…
Continuing the theme from the past couple of newsletters about how we should best embrace digital events, I thought these two pieces were interesting. They are not talking specifically about literary festivals but they both offer a fresh perspective as we begin to reimagine the online literary festival. . .
1) Benedict Evans is a well known digital media strategist and tech commentator. In his latest newsletter he talks about the probems of taking conferences online but much of what he says applies to literary festivals too…
“Online events remind me a lot of ecommerce in about 1996. The software is raw and rough around the edges, and often doesn’t work very well, though that can get fixed. But more importantly, no-one quite knows what they should be building.
“A conference, or an ‘event’, is a bundle. There is content from a stage, with people talking or presenting or doing panels and maybe taking questions. Then, everyone talks to each other in the hallways and over coffee and lunch and drinks. Separately, there may be a trade fair of dozens or thousands of booths and stands, where you go to see all of the products in the industry at once, and talk to the engineers and salespeople. . .
“The only part of that bundle that obviously works online today is the content. It’s really straightforward to turn a conference presentation or a panel into a video stream, but none of the rest is straightforward at all.
“First, we haven’t worked out good online tools for many of the reasons people go to these events. Most obviously, we don’t have any software tool for bumping into people in the same field by random chance and having a great conversation. No-one has ever really managed to take a networking event and put it online. You certainly can’t just make a text chat channel for everyone watching the video stream and claim that’s as the same as a cocktail party. . .
“In other words, some conferences are built around creating a network in the hallways. If you take them online, there are no hallways.”
2) Robert H. Frank is an economics professor at Cornell University and writing in the New York Times he warns of the way that online learning will become a ‘winner takes all’ market where the biggest providers will quickly build sufficient revenue to push out the smaller providers. . .
“Consider this thought experiment. Which would you choose: An online course delivered by one of the world’s most knowledgeable and charismatic instructors, supported by Pixar-class animators, award-winning documentary filmmakers and a team of in-person graduate teaching assistants? Or the same course taught in person by an average instructor reading from yellowed notes?
“Economies of scale are the driving force here. Most of the costs of delivering remote courses are fixed, which means that costs per student fall sharply with volume. The cost of producing a first-rate instructional video is the same, for example, no matter how many students view it. The only additional expense of expanding remote courses would be the hiring of local graduate teaching assistants.
“As the leading remote offerings are more widely adopted, the additional revenues will fuel further improvements in quality. Over time, the most successful remote courses will enjoy a growing cost advantage, since their expense per student declines as more people use them.”
Edinburgh goes online…
Nick Barley and his team announced that they would be putting on 100 events from Saturday 15 to Monday 31 August all available free via their website. In the announcement Barley said he would like to thank, “The Scottish Government, Creative Scotland, The City of Edinburgh Council and many of our sponsors and donors, including Baillie Gifford, People’s Postcode Lottery and a number of generous individuals”. Reading that fulsome list of supporters brought to mind the New York Times article quoted above. Full details of the Edinburgh programme will be announced at the end of July.
Festival of the Week - Wigtown
I am continually impressed by the Wigtown Festival - they always seem to be thinking about how to develop the literary festival as more than just a series of events.
So I was interested in a report in the Bookseller this week, which said the festival “is spearheading a drive to make the region a centre for literary tourism in the post-pandemic world.
“Wigtown Festival has announced it is working with the Spot-lit project, which will support a series of business and organisations in realising innovative ideas that make the most of the town's links to famous writers and poets.
“Adrian Turpin, creative director of Wigtown Festival, said: ‘Spot-lit is allowing us to support innovative ideas from locally based businesses and cultural organisations at the very moment when we need to rebuild again. Holidays and short breaks with a focus on famous authors and stories are hugely popular, and people are increasingly interested in discovering contemporary writing and storytelling. Dumfries and Galloway has an abundance of both – as well as being home to Scotland’s National Book Town — so we hope Spot-lit will help establish the region as the country’s literary heartland.’”
Thank you for reading!
That’s it for this newsletter. Please follow us on twitter, add us to your press release list and feel free to get in touch if there is anything you would like us to write about: mathew@bookamp.co.uk. It is has been brilliant to see the way the newsletter has been adopted by our small community - we now go out to over 500 festival organisers, bookshops, publishers and authors - you can get your fellow lit festival colleagues to sign up here.