Our annual festival will be on 20th -22nd September 2024 at the Stourpaine Village Hall, Stourpaine, near Blandford Forum, Dorset. There will be readings, talks, discussion, book signings, music, refreshments and a Festival bookstall.
This year’s festival will be a celebration of 40 years of independent literary publishing and the community around the journal and workshop. We look forward to celebrating with friends old and new.
Amongst the featured readers will be Valerie Bridge, Barbara Bridger, Pratibha Castle, Geraldine Clarkson, Elizabeth Cook, Melisande Fitzsimons, John Freeman, Andrew Henon, Ric Hool, Norman Jope, Jane Wheeler.
Paul Rossiter, of Isobar Press, will be speaking about Modern Japanese Poetry.
There will be open readings by Sarah Acton, Rebecca Althaus, Lesley Burt, Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani, Huw Gwynn-Jones, Gerald Killingworth, Kathleen McPhilemy, Aidan Semmens, Biljana Scott, Sarah Watkinson, Charles Wilkinson.
There will be tributes to Colin Sutherll, Kim Taplin
We look forward to welcoming back old friends and making new ones. We advise booking accommodation early as demand will be high.
BOOKINGS
Festival Weekend tickets are £80
Festival Friday and Sunday tickets are £25 each
Festival Saturday tickets are £55 each session or £65 for the day
Please book on the pay / subscribe / donate page. Click on the Subscription menu and select your option and pay through the Donate button at the bottom of the page.
Festival Bursaries are available as part of our social inclusion policy.
BAME writers and poets, writers on no/low income, working class writers, writers from areas of rural or coastal deprivation, writers who have experienced homelessness, refugee writers, writers in the LGBTQ+ communities, writers who have survived abuse, disabled writers, neurodivergent writers, and writers with chronic health conditions. Please email tearsinthefence@gmail.com with the subject ‘Tears in the fence festival’ to apply for a free pass to all sessions.
OPEN READINGS
We welcome everyone who wishes to read at the Festival. Open readings are available on a first come first served basis. We will aim to accommodate everyone that wishes to participate. Please book as soon as possible so that we can allocate reading slots and timings. Many thanks.
Tears in the Fence 