Festival Challenge: Anjum Anand and Nikki Bedi

"Something you love, something you're interested in, something you've never heard of"

Day Six – Anjum Anand and Nikki Bedi

Cooking Indian food would be complicated and time consuming, wouldn't it? And the end result would be unhealthy and swimming in oil – ok for a Friday night take-away, but hardly the thing for a mid-week dinner. And a cookery demonstration? Won't that be incredibly detailed, use dozens of ingredients I've never heard of and tell me off taking shortcuts or not chopping my onions finely enough?

Well, no. Today's cookery demonstration with Guest Director and Indian food lover, Anjum Anand, is just like watching two girls talking in a kitchen, as she's interviewed by friend and TV personality Nikki Bedi. The interview covers her life and approach to cooking as a working mother and explains why she sees Indian cuisine as the healthiest of all, packed with spices and superfoods.

While she talks, she cooks a delicious looking (not to say smelling) curry, and the on-stage camera picks up on the details. She's full of practical tips without being didactic,and is such an evangelist for healthy, Indian food that it would be difficult not to be converted.

Woe betide anyone who should interrupt me while I'm trying to concentrate on cooking a meal, but Anjum makes it look effortless. The relaxed format works well; Anjum discusses all kinds of experiences and opinions and it makes a pleasant change from the straight-forward interviews and discussions of other events.

I leave with a recipe for a fail-safe five minute Indian dessert, a plethora of cooking tips and a determination to avoid the takeaway and make my next Indian meal for myself, not to mention an overwhelming urge for lunch - those delicious smells are too much!
Like to try a food event? Try L383 Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on Sunday.



Laura Brand
Membership Scheme Manager

Guest Review: Chris Womersley on L210 Marina Warner

Here Festival Writer-in-Residence Chris Womersley, reviews Marina Warner's appearance at this year's Festival in L210 The Cheltenham Lecture, exploring the wonders of the classic Tales of the Arabian Nights in Marina's latest book, Stranger Magic.

This year the Cheltenham Lecture was given by the ridiculously accomplished Marina Warner, Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex, writer of numerous books and articles and winner of many prizes. Her wonderful book Phantasmagoria – about changing characterisations of spirits and souls since the Enlightenment - was a great source of inspiration for me when I was writing my novel Bereft, a novel which is, in part at least, about death and haunting.

Marina’s latest book Stranger Magic is an examination of the Tales of the Arabian Nights. The famous Tales of the Arabian Nights is, of course, a collection of Indian and Persian folk tales structured elegantly around the highest possible stakes – a woman named Scheherezade tells stories in order to forestall her own execution. The Tales were collected by various individuals and probably assembled some time in the eighth century. The first European version was translated into French by Antoine Galland from an Arabic text in the early eighteenth century. Along with magnetic mountains, a city of brass and flying machines, they are about the magic of stories and the pleasure of the cliff-hanger. They bring to mind the claim of Vladimir Nabokov’s; that a good story must entertain, educate and enchant, each of which might be dispensed with at a pinch - except for enchantment. This the young Scheherezade surely feels more keenly than any ordinary story-teller, for failure to do so will result in her own death. Luckily, she is no ordinary story-teller and she manages, unnoticed by the sultan, to bear three children before her nights of tale-telling are over.

Marina spoke eloquently of the spread of the tales and the way their fixation on commerce and riches as rewards mirrored the tenor of the age and the concomitant spread of capitalism. There is, she noted dryly, a sort of product placement in effect in the repeated mentions of various goods and services. Also embedded within the narrative is a subversive counter-narrative which offers an alternative to the apparent misogyny of the umbrella story (all women are treacherous, untrustworthy - deserving only of death). Increasing in frequency through the stories are tales in which women are given more dynamic roles and Scheherezade herself is, of course, a heroic figure.

Of surprise to me was the fact that only one of the stories features a flying carpet – the motif that has most certainly come to represent the tales in popular imagination. More common are djinns of various tempers who do the bidding of their masters once released from the vials in which they have been imprisoned. This is, perhaps, rather like the creation of fiction itself – the writer releases certain spirits he hopes will more or less do one’s bidding. Although fictional characters don’t - as people sometimes like to think - assume lives of their own, they are occasionally somewhat slippery and difficult to manage. They must be managed carefully if they are to tell the story in the best possible way.

Chris Womersley
Writer-in-Residence

Guest Review: Gail Jones on L173 Edna O'Brien

Writer-in-Residence Gail Jones reviews Edna O'Brien's appearance at this year's Festival discussing her distinguished writing career and her latest short story collection, Saints and Sinners.

One of the delights of a literature festival is that of hearing the writer’s voice. This is not blank adoration, nor an effect of the cultish wish to be close to the talented or famous, but a stranger and rather more subtle pleasure. When one hears the writer’s voice, particularly as they read or recite their work, there’s an odd internal residue effect, so that the voice can be summoned when one returns to the prose itself. No doubt the auditory nerve that enables us to recall music - and also, in Jonathon Sacks’ view, to replay maddening jingles with lunatic repetitiousness – also registers memory of the reading voice.

The minute Edna O’Brien began her husky Irish speaking, there it was; the necessary music. She opened her session with a joke: at eighty, she has just won the Frank O’Connor Prize for her new book of stories, Saints and Sinners ; her first book, the famous Country Girls, was negatively reviewed by Frank O’Connor and he claimed among other things that the author had poor choice in men. The claim was “clairvoyant”, O’Brien said, and she was pleased now with the irony of being awarded the prize in his name. From that moment on her lovely voice enchanted: she spoke of the literary enchantment linked to song (and to Joyce in particular); and indeed her first novel is about to reappear as a kind of ‘semi-musical’ stage version, She spoke too of the dreamy in-between state that writing both performs and engages – Sebald was her model here. But it was when O”Brien recited her own prose from memory, with a kind of sumptuous fulsomeness and aesthetic dedication, that the audience was invaded - in my imagination anyway - by the tones and timbre of her utterly particular voice.


Gail Jones
Writer-in-Residence

Guest Blog: Gail Jones on L038 Charles Dickens

Gail Jones, Festival Writer-in-Residence reviews Claire Tomalin and John Carey's session on Tomalin's new biography of Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens: A Life, from this past Saturday.

A couple of months ago, at an event at Dickens’ House in Doughty Street, I met the head of a Chinese delegation of twenty five translators, all engaged in producing new translations of Dickens’ work for the bicentenary of his birth. The first Chinese translations, he told me, were by a man who knew no English. He consulted with someone who did, who then “told him the stories”, which he then wrote down. Not translation as one would normally understand it, this sounds appallingly reductive, impoverished and even fraudulent, consisting chiefly of some vague, transliterated version of the plot.

At Claire Tomalin and John Carey’s session on Tomalin’s new biography of Dickens, what was most delightful – apart from the genial solidarity of the speakers and their impressive erudition – was the wonderful tribute to detail that each duly engaged and honoured. Typical of Tomalin’s biographies, Carey claimed, was her attention to ‘bit-players’, to minor characters, to wayward small details and the very texture of relationships that might altogether constitute the life and work of a writer. In a fabulously fluent session they then discussed the family and friendships of Dickens – the peculiarity of his father’s sense of class and entitlement, the inability of Dickens to ‘handle’ women, his prodigious energy and enterprise, comically driven, apparently, by pints of champagne and claret. Each gave special tribute to Dickens’ friendship with John Forster, his exceptional first biographer, whom Tomalin cited both as an inspiration to her own work and as a kind of model of loyalty and love.

Tomalin was beautifully modest in her magnificent achievement, and also acknowledged Carey’s contribution to the world of Dickens’ scholarship: together they demonstrated the friendship – and radical human specificity - that invisibly underpins all genuine art.

Gail Jones
Writer-in-Residence

Guest Review: Chris Womersley on L153 David Vann

Writer-in-Residence, Chris Womersley reviews American author, David Vann's appearance at this year's Literature Festival discussing his debut novel, Legend of a Suicide his latest novel, Caribou Island and how themes of darkness affect the reading public.

What is it about darkness that so frightens the reading public? On Monday night David Vann, the author of Legend of a Suicide and Caribou Island, was in discussion with Steven Gale in Imperial Square. Vann’s father committed suicide when David was a 13-year-old boy and his novel Legend of a Suicide is a fictionalised account of the emotional fallout from that traumatic event. He found it almost impossible to get the novel published – tried unsuccessfully, in fact, for 12 years but was repeatedly turned down because of the grim nature of the novel’s subject.

Legend of a Suicide was eventually only published in 2008 because it won a prize, one of the conditions of which was publication. Most of the reviews in the US, he said, praised the quality of the writing but advised the public to steer clear of it because of its subject matter. The New York Times, however, supported Vann and the novel has gone on to win a number of prizes and be translated into several languages. ‘I sell more of Legend of a Suicide in Catalan than I do in English in the US,’ he said, laughing. ‘The French love it, too.’

The novel’s themes – of death, of the lingering impacts violence – are perhaps somewhat un-American, which might explain the novel’s muted US reception and sales. The American dream, according to Vann, is not about money, per se, but about the willingness to reinvent oneself – for the better, naturally. Wilderness in both Legend of a Suicide and Caribou Island is also a place where characters find not their essential goodness and humanity, but their darkness. Again, it’s a particularly un-American notion (although a common current in Australian literature), whose pioneer history is one of families and individuals striking out into the wilderness and finding their more essential – and better - natures.

One might wonder what a publisher might make of Anna Karenina were it to fall across their desk in this day and age. Yes, it’s well written and a convincing portrayal of a woman’s interior life but does she really have to, you know, kill herself at the end?

Chris Wormersley
Writer-in-Residence

Guest Review: Kalinda Ashton on L048 Gareth Peirce

Literature Festival Writer-in-Residence, Kalinda Ashton offers a passionate and thought-provoking review of Gareth Peirce in L048 Dispatches from the Dark Side, an event focusing on the use of torture in the war on terror and the consequent erosion of human rights.

I was intrigued to see Gareth Pierce speak about the erosion of human rights, the torture of prisoners, and undermining of rule of law that has emerged in the UK (and elsewhere) since September 11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Australia, where I’m from, I had spent some years involved in an organisation campaigning against repressive new anti-terror laws in my home country, the passing of worryingly termed ‘anti-sedition’ legislation and the horrifying treatment of Australians David Hicks and Jack Thomas while incarcerated (Hicks in Guantanamo Bay). As in the UK and the United States, Australia saw a host of new powers introduced ostensibly to combat terrorism that removed basic and fundamental tenets of transparency and equality before the law. This involved not only the right to hold suspects without charge for extended periods of time but also the provision of severe penalties for such suspects even notifying anyone or speaking publicly about their detention. Trials held in secret were justified under the silencing claim of protecting ‘national security’ a vague but sufficiently menacing phrase to silence all but the most trenchant of critics.

And the last few years has seen not only the horrors of Abu Ghraib photos, but also “extraordinary rendition” that phrase of evasive and euphemistic genius – a weasel word term surely right up there with “collateral damage” – which saw those accused of terrorism and other crimes whisked away to black holes of the world where they could be tortured to the United States government’s, and its allies, hearts’ content without reprisal since these acts of cruelty and humiliation weren’t actually taking place on US soil and therefore could be shoddily justified or plausibly denied. How did we end up in a world where the question of whether we ought to be torturing those against whom now charges have been proven is debated in the pages of mainstream newspaper with commentators expressing their views as guilelessly as if they were discussing topics as ordinary and acceptable as changing tax regulations or health care rebates? (And that’s leaving aside the conclusion that several experts, regardless of their political affiliations, have spoken publicly about: the fact that torture, put simply, does not work, since suspects in agony are likely to admit to almost anything to make the pain stop.)

For a woman with such a polemical style and fierce criticisms, Pierce in person is remarkably gentle, softly spoken, careful and self-deprecating. (At the end of the session she whispered to the chair that she was sure no one would wish to attend her book signing and perhaps it wouldn’t be necessary). She spoke of her fear that the modern state in the United Kingdom is headed for “moral and political catastrophe”, obsessed by the construction of “suspect communities” particularly Islamic or Middle-Eastern people’s who at this moment are dubbed “extremist” in a manufactured culture of suspicion and fear. Pierce also compared some of the manipulation of evidence and treatment of suspects with the fabricated evidence and planted “proof” used against Irish resistance fighters and those she has defended against trumped up charges and corrupt police.

As a lawyer who has represented Moazzam Begg (who along with Hicks and Mamdouh Habib was held in Guantanamo Bay – a prison created under principles consciously aimed at avoiding any legal or military limitations, obligations or safeguards – tortured and belittled) Pierce has taken on cases with courage and conviction. She listed some of the incursions into rights in the last decade that make her fear for how states conduct themselves and observe the eschewing of what may once have been thought of as basic human rights: removing cases from jury trials and/or holding them in secret, the use of evidence against suspects that is not available to them to redress, correct, deny or combat, indefinite detention, control orders, deportations and extraordinary rendition.

Pierce also cautioned again the notion of “exceptionalism” – the assumption that America in particular has somehow earned the right to play by special rules. The government of the United Kingdom, according to Pierce, accesses a slippery and disingenuous attitude to the use of torture along the lines of “others do it; we don’t condone it” despite evidence indicating the Blair government knew very well of what was occurring. This “moral silence” has, in Pierce’s view, added to the abuse and demonisation of individuals such as Begg.

When queried about how she chooses her cases, Pierce paused then replied simply that she takes cases “if someone asks me”; after an audience member asked about if she worries about her own life being under surveillance, Pierce appeared bemused but eventually shrugged and revealed she did not really think much about it.

One of more painful and confronting moments in Pierce’s talk was when she was asked “what does torture do?” to the people who have been subjected to it. Echoing a writer I met in Edinburgh who worked with victims of torture, she said quietly:

As well as what we can’t imagine...young men unable to stand properly, to hear, or to see ... [their experiences are often ones] which they can’t describe. Some people can’t say [what happened] even if their lives literally depended on it [such as refugees applying for asylum]. Two people in the telling of their stories to me have fainted just speaking of it. People don’t go back to normality.

Secret trials, the right to hold suspects without charge or to refuse them entry to countries or indeed deport them without ever showing them the evidence for so doing, ‘military’ prisons such as Guantanamo that explicitly attempted to evade protecting basic human rights outlined in the Geneva convention, confessions obtained through torture, deceit and the threat of indefinite detention in isolation – is this really what twenty-first century democracies are meant to look like?

Kalinda Ashton
Writer-in-Residence

Festival Challenge: How to...Survive Exploring the Extremes

"Something you love, something you're interested in, something you've never heard of"

Day Five – How to … Survive Exploring the Extremes

One of the things I love about this Festival challenge is the surprise of it.  Taking my seat in The Salon among the Tuesday-morning Cheltenham audience, I surmise that I'm probably not alone in having never scaled a mountain or lived in the wilderness.

But that's before Fiona Thornewill, the fastest person ever to trek to the South Pole, takes to the stage dressed in killer heels, a glamorous fur waistcoat and beautifully groomed hair and makeup.  Her companion for the morning, Festival Explorer-in-Residence Dominic Faulkner, fits in pretty well to the Cheltenham scene too, with chinos, open necked shirt and blazer.  So appearances can clearly be deceptive.

Despite the incredible feats they are discussing today; a solo polar expedition and an epic climb of Everest (starting at the very bottom, 5000 miles away at the Dead Sea) both seem incredibly 'normal' and even self deprecating when needed.  Fiona describes one teacher's assessment of her as interested in nothing but, "boys, makeup and parties" and Dominic admits that he did comparatively little preparation for his epic climb, laughing that, “you can peak too soon”.

Joking aside though, there’s no mistaking how determined they are. Both are keen to point out that they feel privileged but not 'lucky; to have seen and done what they have and that they've worked fantastically hard to make it happen.

Their stories are unbelievably inspiring, and all the more so for being told not through the glossy medium of television, but by someone sitting in front of you.  When Fiona describes crossing a bottomless pit of a crevasse on a narrow snow bridge, or Dominic talks about how the death of a fellow climber gave life and adventure a new perspective for him, the audience are gripped.

The talk ends by discussing whether it matters that there are seemingly so few “firsts” left to do in the world of exploration.  Dominic sums it up: he’d been obsessed with being the first to do the ‘longest climb’ but that the experience itself, and the perspective he gained from it, made him realise how naïve that was.  What he thinks is important is getting out there and doing it and belives it's unexplored until you've seen it for yourself.

Inspiring stuff.

Laura Brand 
Membership Scheme Manager

Review: Great British Railway Journeys

Digital Marketing Manager, David Drakeley reviews L098 Michal Portillo: Great British Railway Journeys from this past Sunday afternoon.

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of trains and I’ve never seen a complete episode of Great British Railway Journeys but the chance to see such an infamous and polished speaker as Michael Portillo in the magnificent setting of Cheltenham’s historic Town Hall certainly appeals to me, so I and several hundred other audience members take our seats for event L098 in anticipation.

Portillo is introduced by Donna Renney, Chief Executive of Cheltenham Festivals to warm round of applause. He wears no tie and leaves his jacket at the side of the stage; clearly it is a Sunday afternoon.

The talk begins with a self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek look back at his political career, touching on how he lost his Parliamentary seat in 1997, numerous political gaffs, MP expenses and destroying concrete paths as a young, canvasing candidate. Portillo is charming and funny and quickly endears himself to the audience.

He discusses the influence of his father, a refugee of the Spanish Civil War, and how, after leaving office, he was approached by a television company to present ‘Great Railway Journeys,’ where Portillo documented the story of his father’s life across Spain. A decade later, he is approached to present the BBC series ‘Great British Railway Journeys,’ travelling the country’s rail network led by George Bradshaw’s famed railway tourism guide circa 1860.

The next 40 minutes are filled with nostalgic stories of steam engines, sleepy village railway stations and quaint seaside towns. Portillo is passionate and knowledgeable and tells his stories with great optimism.

The event ends with a selection of questions from the audience and a final round of applause before Portillo leaves the stage. Controversial it isn’t, but given the romantic imagery and overt British-ness of the subject, I’m left pleasantly surprised and feeling rather cheerful for a Sunday afternoon. All I need now is a pot of tea and Last of the Summer Wine and I’ll almost be ready for Monday morning...


David Drakeley
Digital Marketing Manager

Festival Challenge: Downton Abbey

"Something you love, something you're interested in, something you've never heard of"

Day Three - Downton Abbey

It's the turn today of something that I (and millions of others) love: Downton Abbey.

It's my first time in the Forum, our new 1600 seat venue, which is packed with a real mix of people: men and women, young and old, all of whom must be home by 9 o'clock for tonight's instalment.

With so many devoted fans in one place the anticipation's high, and there's warm applause to greet the panel: producer Gareth Neame, "The World of Downton Abbey" author Jessica Fellowes, creator Julian Fellowes and (swoon) actor Dan Stevens. As ever, it's slightly bizarre to finally see the face of a voice I know so well from BBC Radio 4's Front Row, Mark Lawson, who's chairing tonight's event.

The audience already know the story and the characters inside out, but the event gives something new: an insight into the structure, ("we keep things deliberately fast-paced") the writing technique, (Julian Fellowes looks aghast when asked if he plots with charts, graphs or arrows), and how unlikely it was that the show should ever have been made in the first place, having been commissioned in 2008 on an "odd network and an unfashionable subject".

There are some brilliant insights into the storylines too, as Julian reveals that one of the series' most outlandish episodes, the death of dashing house guest Mr Pamuk, (whose body is hurriedly dragged back to his bedroom in the middle of the night by three female characters in a desperate attempt to avoid a scandal) is based entirely on fact and was discovered in a friend's great aunt's diary of a real-life 1880s house-party.

The panel quickly fall to discussing the question that's debated in the papers almost every day: how to account for the phenomenal success of the show. Not since "The Jewel In the Crown" do they believe has a show infected the public consciousness so greatly, and it's even spawned a Private Eye column, "Downturn Abbey", which actor Dan Stevens confesses to having framed on his wall.  Producer Gareth Neame says it's the first period drama he's seen that he's really believed in, but all agree it's impossible to truly account for the way it caught the mood.

They won't be drawn on whether there'll be a third series or not, but seem to suggest that the 1920s would be an ideal setting for further episodes. And with a Christmas special to come, there's plenty still to look forward to.

Laura Brand
Membership Scheme Manager

Guest Review: Gail Jones on L033 The Spanish Civil War

Festival Writer-in-Residence, Gail Jones discusses L033 The Spanish Civil War, an event focusing on the historical significance and cultural afterlife of the War on the 75th Anniversary of it's beginning.

“Nothing is uncontentious” announced Valentine Cunningham, speaking on the haunted cultural afterlife in Britain of the Spanish Civil War, now in its 75th anniversary year. Appearing with DJ Taylor, novelist, critic and biographer of Orwell, each discussed with lively, indeed, wholly materialist
engagement the ‘ghostly’ versions of the War in cultural memory – chiefly as it exists in elegies, monuments, fiction and memoir. It was a session dense with heterogeneous cultural references and reminders of the disputation around canonical literary works, of which Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is the paradigm case. Much recollection, it was suggested, was both grief stricken and guilty; many memoirs were delayed and complicated by political confusion; there still exist forms of heroic identification and factionalized quarrels which intercept the production and reception of Civil War literature.

It is a joy of writers’ festivals that experts are allowed, and indeed encouraged, to engage in virtuosic excursiveness. In a wonderful moment, warming to the theme of displaced responses by British poets to the Spanish Civil War, DJ Taylor cited the punk rock band, The Clash, and their song “Spanish Bombs” in which the lead singer invokes the mayhem of the war when he is in a nightclub in Spain in 1975. Likewise, Pan’s Labyrinth was cited as an important revisionist allegory of the contestation of nationalist fascism.

Two weeks ago I appeared at the Hay Segovia festival and was keen to ask writers in Spain about the exhumation of the remains of Federico Garcia Lorca. Most I spoke to simply evaded the question. It is Lorca’s murder, Cunningham claims, that signifies symbolically the regime’s intolerance for art; the controversy over mass graves is the ghastly and material reminder – like the passage of the bullet through Orwell’s throat - of repressed and difficult narratives not yet fully visible.

Gail Jones will be appearing in L270 Writers-in-Residence, this Thursday at 8.45pm. Find out more here.

Festival Challenge: The Book Show

"Something you love, something you're interested in, something you've never heard of"

Day Two - Sky Arts Book Show

I'm no stranger to TV but I've never been part of a studio audience before, so it's a novelty to make my way past cameras, crew and tv screens to take my place at today's Book Show which will be screened on Sky Arts later this month.

The set's a classic library, with a twist; old-fashioned typewriters and vintage style sofas are paired with funky chandeliers and stacks of stacks of books (naturally), many of which I recognise from my own shelves at home. Even the walls are papered in pages of books.

As we practice applauding and watch the jib camera swinging over us, the panel come onto the stage: presenter Mariella Frostrup, comedian and clinical psychologist Pamela Stephenson-Connolly (wearing the most incredible pair of stiletto heels), broadcaster and journalist Joan Bakewell and founder of Hip Hop Shakespeare, Akala. Many of the audience will have bought tickets without even knowing the late-confirmed lineup, and it's great just to be a part of it.

From my seat I can see Mariella's autocue, but it's purely for introductions - the conversation runs seamlessly and (apparently) effortlessly as the panel discuss their writing, their guilty pleasures and the place of literature today. The calm on stage is countered by the crew, intensely watching from the sidelines and ready to run on to fix a microphone or touch up makeup whenever it's needed.

We quickly forget anything that might be taking place off stage though, as the conversation on it is so entertaining.  Last to be interviewed is Akala from Hip Hop Shakespeare, who quickly wins his audience over by asking them to identify whether a series of lyrics are the work of a hip hop artist or the bard himself. It sounds simple, but when most of the panel (and this member of the audience) incorrectly attribute a line from an Eminem song to Shakespeare, he's more than made his point.

The hour quickly passes, and we finish by watching the credits roll by on a nearby tv screen, superimposed over the set that's laid out before us.  The good news? There's still chance to catch two shows tomorrow, with two fantastic new line-ups. Find full details here.

Laura Brand

Membership Scheme Manager

Guest Blog: Witi Ihimaera

We caught up with prominent Maori writer and Festival Writer-in-Residence, Witi Ihimaera to get his thoughts on the Festival and hear about his journey from New Zealand to be with us... 

People told me before I left New Zealand that the Times Cheltenham Literature Festival was the mother of all book celebrations so, of course, when I received the invitation to come I couldn't decline as it was like getting an invitation from the Queen. Apart from which New Zealand and Australia across the ditch from us (as we call the Tasman Sea) are the focus countries this year and although I feel a little bit ganged up on - there's three of them and only one of me, well, as Ann Landers famously said, "Things are always darkest before they become totally black."

So here I am in Cheltenham, having flown from the bottom of the world, after a thirty hour flight including stopover in Hong Kong. Warm and sympathetic hospitality was awaiting me, however, in the person of Jane Moore who picked me up for the two hour drive "into the West."

I am really impressed with the volunteer framework at the festival, and the hands on approach of everyone from Board members to executive staff like Nicola Tuxworth - and even the guys who make coffee in the writers' lounge are friendly and fun. One of them gave me a quick lesson on making coffee Cheltenham style, so we were soon chatting away and I was able to be the proud Daddy and tell him all about my daughter Olivia who runs Supreme, the best coffee company in New Zealand.

The accommodation I have been given is top drawer. I am staying at The Queen's Cheltenham, in a beautiful corner room overlooking Imperial Square. I feel like the Emissary of Aotearoa and I have a lovely view of everyone hastening to all the book events at the Square or in Montpellier Gardens. But I blush to admit that my first task on arriving was to find a local pub where other rugby enthusiasts gather to watch the Rugby World Cup on a big television screen over a pint. Go the All Blacks! 

So is the Times Cheltenham the Mother of all literary festivals? It certainly must be: the catalogue itself is 90 pages packed cover to cover with a mind boggling programme of events that ranges not only across all genres of literature but also music, wine and good food. Its fun to read as well, with a great section aimed at Families and Young Readers, featuring covers of interesting books, one of which I am definitely picking up for my grandson called "On Your Farts: Get Set, Go! And there are so many book clubs to augment the pleasure of your experiences at the Festival! 

Today was the first day of the Festival and I joined the throng at "The Language Wars", listening enthralled to Henry Hitchings, then at "Footprints" with travel writers Colin Thubron, Benedict Allen and Sara Wheeler, and topped up a really terrific day listening to Christopher Ondaatje talking about his new book, "The Last Colonial." I loved the incidental conversations I had with others attending, and I realized that as a professional writer one doesn't often get the chance to be anonymous and to join others as listeners rather than as participant. The delight of discovery and the pleasure of being introduced to new kinds of books and new worlds of ideas is intoxicating. 

But I'm off now to a party where I shall toast the Festival with a good glass of wine. As the Lindeman Wine and Book Club asks in a clever advertisement in the catalogue, "Read or White?"

Witi Ihimaera

Festival Writer-in-Residence

Festival Challenge - The First Review...

"Something you love, something you're interested in, something you've never heard of"

Day One - Edward Burne-Jones

"It's not a case of false modesty if I say I'm appalling at art, and much to the relief of my teachers, I dropped the subject at school as soon as I could.

But like a lot of people, I enjoy going to art galleries and collections, even if I know little about what I'm seeing. So I'm pleased when this event on Victorian artist Burne Jones is today's random choice, and I'm hoping it will give me an insight into his art.

It certainly does - the talk's well prepared and features masses of images of his paintings and famous stained glass, as well as more intimate cartoons. But what I wasn't expecting was such an insight into the art of biography writing from author Fiona MacCarthy; the six years that went in to the making of this book, the travels across Britain, Italy and 40 different churches and the grateful admission that, "I never wished I was doing a different subject: that's the worst thing that can happen to a biographer after two years of research!"

It turns out there's more to interest me in this talk than I might have first expected - Burne Jones was at the centre of social and intellectual life of the Victorian period, and counted Henry James and Oscar Wilde amongst his friends and was uncle by marriage to both Stanley Baldwin and Rudyard Kipling.  The insights into his private life provoke a hum of gentle laughter across the hall, and the identification of his muse and lover in some of his most famous works certainly adds a new dimension.

The talk ends on the promise that no one is far from a stained glass window of Burne Jones' (a quick google search reveals there's one in Cheltenham's All Saints church) and I'll certainly appreciate the next one I see."

Laura Brand

Membership Scheme Manager

Festival Challenge

The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival 2011 begins today and we have a challenge from our Membership Team to help you get the most out of this year's Festival...

“Go to something you love, something that looks interesting and something you’ve never heard of before”

That’s the tip from one of our Members for a perfect Lit Fest, and whilst I’m already set to go to things I love (Downton Abbey) and that look interesting (well, there’s been a lot about Wallis Simpson this year), I’ve not yet booked in to things I’ve never heard of.

With up to 50 events a day, what happens if you take a chance with a random event for an hour?  That’s what I’ll be doing, throughout the Festival.  Armed with a brochure, a blindfold and a pin (well, almost) I’ll be discovering the Festival’s hidden gems…

What have you discovered at the Festival?  Tweet, send us your reviews…

Laura Brand 

Membership Scheme Manager

Books about town...

The sun is shining and the Festival starts on Friday. What better way to celebrate than with our second Bonne Maman Big Read Book Drop?!

We've just left ten copies of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 out and about in Cheltenham. It's all part of the Bonne Maman Big Read - so if you find a copy start reading, sharing and enjoying - and tell us all about it over on Facebook and Twitter.

All ten copies are 'hiding' around the Festival Quarter in Imperial Gardens and Montpellier Gardens. Here's a few clues to help you on your way...



You can find out more about how to get involved with the Bonne Maman Big Read over on the Festival website