Three successful Swanage authors will help to launch a literary festival in town which organisers hope will grow into an annual Dorset event.
Members of Swanage WI’s Page Turners reading club will hold the one day festival at The Studio at The Mowlem in Swanage on Saturday 9th November 2024.
Festival spokesperson Salliann Coleman with two of the bookmarks drawn by Swanage children for the event
Three local authors to speak at The Studio
Tickets for the fiction event with Gill Calvin Thomas, whose first book, Vex Not Her Ghost, was published this year, and for the non-fiction talk with Jason Tomes, author of Swanage – An Illustrated History, are priced at £5 each and available from The Mowlem.
But a lunchtime session at the studio aimed at children will be free, with the aim of getting more primary school youngsters to pick up and enjoy books.
Swanage Literary Festival 2024
Saturday 9th November 2024
- 10.30 am to 12 noon: Gill Calvin Thomas, author of Vex Not Her Ghost. Tickets £5
- 12.30 pm to 1.30 pm: Eric Johns, children’s author. Free booking required
- 2 pm to 3.30 pm: Jason Tomes, author of Swanage: An Illustrated History. Tickets £5
Bookmark competition
A competition to design bookmarks based around children’s favourite stories has been launched through Swanage Primary School, St Mark’s School and St Mary’s School, and Swanage children’s writer Eric Johns will choose winners in two age groups.
The best bookmarks made by pupils from Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 will receive book tokens, and it is also hoped to display all entries at the festival.
The much loved Swanage Library
“We want to support the work of the library”
Festival spokesperson Salliann Coleman said:
“I was a primary school teacher and it was frightening to discover how many children don’t have books in the house. During Covid I did a reading online session for the Book Trust and you suddenly realise that some children don’t have books at home.
“In 2023, a survey for the National Literacy Trust found that 80 percent of children aged between five and eight had a book of their own at home – so 20 percent did not. You don’t realise the scale of it.
“But every time I go into Swanage Library I am amazed at the facilities they have there for children and how well used they are – not just books to take out, but also Duplo, Lego, dressing up clothes and games to play.
“For the size of the library and the demographic of Swanage it is quite buzzy when you go in there and I don’t think enough people are aware of it.
“We want to support the work of the library as it’s a service that could so easily be pared back with local authority cuts, yet one which is vital to have as part of the local community.”
The Budleigh Salterton literary festival event with Clive Myrie was the inspiration for Salliann Coleman
Swanage is blessed with talent
Salliann added:
“Our reading club meets once a month – we come from different walks of life, with different ages, and different experiences, so the book is the catalyst for the meeting.
“We do have wine at these meetings and one night we had probably had a glass too many, when someone suddenly suggested it would be lovely if we could organise a literary festival.
“Last year, I went to the festival in Budleigh Salterton to hear the author and TV presenter Clive Myrie talk, and felt that we could rustle up something like this in Swanage.
“Their festival runs in a church over two days and attracts some big names, but it made me think that you don’t necessarily have to have a load of different venues or a particularly big venue to run a successful event.
“That’s where it all started, but we decided to start with a one-day event and not try to run before we can walk. We thought it would be nice to have local authors, and found that Swanage was blessed with talent!”
Swanage author Gill Calvin Thomas with the cover of her first novel, Vex Not Her Ghost
“Writing for me was a joy”
Retired academic Gill Calvin Thomas lives with her husband in Swanage and finds inspiration while walking in Purbeck, where she is able to escape into a world of her own making, getting to know her characters and planning the next plot twist and turn.
Gill, who will talk to the festival about the writing and publishing process as well as what made her want to write, said:
“I joined a fiction group a couple of years ago. The first exercise was to write a piece about someone seeing something they didn’t expect, and that’s how my first novel was born.
“Vex Not Her Ghost developed as the characters in the book came to life, with the storyline in part based on my own experience.
“My mother died of natural causes when I was four years old and throughout my life I have felt something missing in me.
“I wrote whenever I could. Not for me the luxury of private space and a quiet life, but I discovered I could block most things out by entering Caitlin’s world, and writing for me was a joy, never a chore.”
Lecturer Jason Tomes wrote an illustrated social history of Swanage with help from Swanage Museum
Ideal position to write a social history
Lecturer Jason Tomes, who was born and raised in Swanage and still returns for several weeks every year, said he felt in an ideal position to write a social commentary on the town and produced Swanage – An Illustrated History with help from Swanage Museum.
The 200 page book covers everything Swanage from Roman quarrying to a post-war tourism boom, before the town found its place in the world as a rural gateway, artistic, historic and quirky.
Jason Tomes said:
“I lived in Swanage from 1966 to 1985, but even after I moved away I kept up to date with what was happening in the town as I came back regularly to visit my parents.
“I wanted to move away as I couldn’t see any employment opportunities in Swanage, but I just viewed it as one of those things and still had a lot of affection for the town.
“Eventually I decided to do some historical research to pass the time while staying with my parents and discovered that Swanage was very poorly served by county histories as it was difficult to fit in with the idea that Dorset was a rural county of thatched cottages with roses round the door.
“Even before tourism, Swanage wasn’t typical of the county, but once it became a seaside resort it became really interesting.”
Children’s author Eric Johns started writing at 10 years old
“People never say what you want them to”
Children’s author Eric Johns, whose works include the Freewheelers series, started writing when he was 10 years old, in a school exercise book which he really wasn’t supposed to use for that purpose.
He showed the story to his gran, who told him to learn to spell, which taught him that people never say what you want them to – but also that he really wanted people to read what he wrote.
He had a series of jobs to prepare him for being an author after leaving school at the age of 15 including working behind a bar, on a farm, as a taxi driver and as a teacher, finally getting to university at the age of 29.
Because he was older than the other students, he was called ‘mature’, for the only time in his life, and says he has never felt mature which is probably why most of the stories he writes are for young people.
Two of the Freewheelers children’s books written by Eric Johns and set in Swanage
“Storytellers are very odd people”
Eric Johns said:
“I sometimes think that storytellers are very odd people because they spend their time in a world that they’ve invented talking to people who don’t exist.
“Don’t ask me why I do it: I don’t know. I just have to, no choice; and the truth is I don’t want to know why because if I did I might stop and then what would I do?
“My stories are often set in places that I know well. The Freewheelers adventures all happen in a small seaside town like the one where I live in Dorset and if anyone knew the layout of the town they could follow in the footsteps of the Freewheelers.
“The Ooser also starts there but veers off into mythological realms. The book is named after an ancient mask with mythic powers. I imagine it taking place in a valley on the border of Dorset and Wales. No such place, you say. But geography is elastic when I want it to be.”
All authors are giving their time for free and all profits from the literary festival will be given to two local charities, Dementia Friendly Purbeck and Purbeck Youth Music.
Further information
- Book tickets for the Swanage Literary Festival through The Mowlem website