Birmingham Book Festival

So, Birmingham may not strike you as a literary city, but you’d be amazed how many writers are from, or have lived here: Jim Crace, David Lodge, Tolkein, Benjamin Zephaniah — to name but a few.
Birmingham Book Festival celebrates all things literary every October, with a well-​balanced programme that runs the gamut of word-​related art: from poetry slams to novels to journalism to storytelling, and everything in between. There’s always opportunities to get involved, with workshops and competitions etc, or you can just sit back and soak it all up at readings, talks or performances. All in all, it’s an expert, well-​organised and enjoyable festival.

I attended a couple of events at the Birmingham Book Festival last autumn. I cannot comment on the entire festival but the events I did attend were very good and well organised. One of the events was a talk at the Library Theatre by a man from the BBC and it was about script writing. I had purchased a ticket in advance and so when I arrived I did not have to queue to buy a ticket — I would recommend buying all tickets in advance to save disappointment and queuing! Before the talk started some of the staff handed out free notebooks and leaflets about various writing groups and competitions, which I thought was good as I could have a read before the talk. The talk itself was very good and I really enjoyed it, however the library theatre was a bit of a drab location and it felt a little run down. Overall, I was impressed with the event and it was well organised.

I’ve been to all the book festivals since being in Birmingham. The first one was fantastic; there were lots of great speakers, workshops and general events that are interesting to both the writer and the reader.
Run by Writing West Midlands, I’ve seen everyone from established names such as Jenny Éclair talking about writing comedy books and local writing lecturers running workshops on how to write. As a writer, I thoroughly look forward to this twice yearly event but I would dearly like to see more workshops where i can polish my skills.
Next festival is October 4−13^th 2012. See you there.