Curious Arts Festival 2019

After five years at Pylewell Park in the New Forest, Curious Arts Festival is on the move - physically to Pippingford Park in East Sussex, and with a change of date from July to August Bank Holiday weekend. The keen-eyed among you will notice this is the same date and place as Byline Festival - and, yes, the two are somewhat joining forces, with ticket holders for Curious Arts having access to both festivals.

John Cleese

The event will be opened by John Cleese on Friday 23rd August, and as always at Curious Arts there will be the wonderful mix of music, comedy, and book events, with a full weekend of activities for children running alongside - everything from author events to insect walks, journalism to late-night music - but here our primary interest is in the literary side of things.

Philippa Perry

The mix of authors and genres is as eclectic and diverse as Curious Arts itself - you can see Misha Glenny of McMafia fame chatting crime networks, hacking and dark markets,  Green Carnation Prize-listed author Niven Govinden with his new novel, This Brutal House, psychotherapist Philippa Perry talking about her 'self-help' books How To Stay Sane and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad that you did),  and Dan Richards recounting his journeys in search of isolation and silence, that led to  Outpost - A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth (excellent for an armchair adventurer like myself!)

Candice Carty-Williams

Tom Rachmam will discuss his Costa-shortlisted, latest novel The Italian Teacher, debut author Candice Carty-Williams her novel Queenie, described as a politicised Bridget Jones about a 25 year old black woman straddling two cultures, and Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers, will be there talking about his new novel, Lanny - a 'missing boy' story that taps into English folklore, described as 'a song to difference and imagination, to friendship, youth and love'

If you prefer 'real life' to fiction, then catch Lemn Sissay talking about his memoir, My Name is Why, which explores his heritage, the meaning of family, and his childhood in care homes, or Guy Kennaway on his personal experience of assisted suicide as recounted in Time To Go.

Other names announced include Ian Birch discussing revolutionary magazine covers, David Nott talking about his time as a voluntary doctor in war zones and areas of natural disaster, and Gina Rippon on her first book for the general reader, The Gendered Brain. You can find more details of these authors and more here on Curious Arts' website.

We attended two Curious Arts Festivals at Pylewell, as guests in 2016 and 2017, and loved every minute of both (except maybe the rain in the second year). The new location is not such an easy one for us to reach, but it would make an excellent excuse to explore an area that I've never visited, so maybe we will be there.

Curious Arts Festival 2018 - literary events

The line up for the literary side is headlined by Kate Mosse who, over the last few years has become a best selling author and household name. Clearly, she will be a hard act to follow but Curious Arts is a festival that is up for the challenge. As of today the full author line up is still to be finalised but looking at who has been announced so far I can genuinely admit to getting excited about it.

Adam Kay trained as a doctor but left to start an alternative career in musical comedy, stand-up and script writing. That is some career jump and one that many people would like to emulate. As you can imagine his book, "This Is Going To Hurt" brings his medical experiences into the into the comedy part of his career. He will be talking about this book and I'm sure laughs will be plenty.

Little Grape Jelly have their performance described as "Little Grape Jelly is a poetry collective formed of Lily Ashley, Grace Pilkington and James Massiah. In their project Hell-p Me, three distinct voices come together to explore the benefits and limitations of communicating online. This is their interaction via email and social media, in free verse and other poetry forms. Each performance offers something new as the conversation continues between shows, detailing the ups and downs of life and love in the digital age. Immediate, honest and fleeting, here is what happens when three different worlds collide on one page."
We've all written emails or texts that have had their meaning misconstrued so we can guess how this can progress and I'm sure it will be entertaining. Well worth following this one across the weekend.

Dolly Alderton and her memoir "Everything I know About Love". On Amazon you can do a little "look inside". I did and frankly I believe this is one I must get along to. Humorous yet naive and hugely entertaining. Well worth going along to this event.

Lou Hamilton is an award winning artist and her latest book "Fear Less" is about great innovators - a fascinating topic about people who have shaped our world. Technology rarely evolves along a logical course but moves in leaps out bounds by people who can dream and are prepared to think in different ways - what's not to love about innovators who help to show us a new way to look at ourselves?

Miriam Darlington is a nature writer who will be talking about "Owl Sense", her latest book. I caught some of this on Radio 4 and was, frankly, very intrigued. Owls catch our imaginations in ways other raptors don't - silent night time hunters. But are they really? And owls that burrow in the ground? What's that about? Come along and find out.

Sam McKechnie will talk about "Miss Violet’s Doll House", a gorgeous craft book on the pleasures and methods of dollhouse making. Many years ago I made a doll's house for our youngest. Anyone who has done this will know how it becomes obsessive and you want to do a little bit more and more. This is going to be facinating.

...and these few are a selection only of who have been announced so far with more being announced regularly - both fiction and non-fiction. There will, inevitably, be clashes of timetable with so many things going off at the same time around the site but I hope that my choices won't be part of those clashes.

Curious Arts festival - author event - Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers (left)

by Maryom

Dave Eggers's book event proved to be unusual as it wasn't really about books as such.
He was interviewed by Patrick Keogh, one of the team behind Curious Arts, and the two discussed Eggers' opinions, ideas, and beliefs, but didn't talk much about his books. It was certainly an interesting event though.
Keogh started by asking "What about Trump?" Now, this is one of those questions that we'd probably ALL like to ask American voters and
Eggers was one of those many Americans who didn't believe it was possible that Trump would be elected. When Trump got the republication nomination, Eggers thought Hilary Clinton would just walk all over him. Then at a rally in California he realised that the average voter saw things differently - that Trump was someone different to the average politician, a guy they'd seen on TV, and somehow thought he was nearer in outlook to them. Even so Eggers was shocked with the election results, comparing the mood in Clinton's office to the fall of Saigon.
Somehow, via a brief mention of Eggers' latest book, Heroes of the Frontier, the conversation moved on to children, their dependence on technology, and lack of self-reliance. Eggers is from Chicago which is a very cynical,cautious place, slow to embrace change, but moving to San Francisco he found himself mixing with the pioneers of the internet,and he knows tech executives who insist that their children lead totally tech-free lives, even sending them to schools where parents pledge their children will not be exposed to social media or even TV at home. He himself is not concerned about kids becoming too dependent on the internet. He was delighted by the Jabberwocky Hunt that had taken place at Curious Arts, and firmly believes that if you leave kids to get bored - for like a minute and a half - they'll find something to do, or make up their own games. They suffer, he thinks, from protection paradox - children are rarely seen out and about alone in SF, they're chaperoned to the park or to school, and this level of protection, although understandable, lets them grow up not knowing how to protect themselves, either in an urban street wise way, or out in the wilds.

And via children in general, they ended up discussing Egger's 826 Valencia project. He wanted to set up a place where kids struggling with English as a second language could be helped with school work, getting writers with time on their hands to assist the project, but the zoning laws stipulated the chosen premises had to be retail, so the front half of the space became a shop full of pirate related stuff - eye patches, peg legs, parrot food - to comply, and the non-profit tutoring centre occupied the rear. The model was so successful that the ideas expanded to other cities across the US, with superheroes or Big Foot as the shop's theme, and Danny Boyle and Nick Hornby have brought the concept over to Dublin and London.

Certainly, as I said, an interesting event. I've not read any of Eggers' books, but now  I think i shall have to.

Pete Brown at Curious Arts Festival

 By The Mole

Beer. What could be more British than beer? There are just four major ingredients as the book cover says: hops, barley, water and yeast. But barley won't make beer - well, not until it's been malted. Malting is getting the barley to germinate and before it's finished, roasting it. But who found that out? It was being done centuries before the chemistry was understood so how did hat happen? Beer is one fascinating subject in its own right with a tremendous amount of history about it and this book is very much going on my 'wish list'.

And then there's cider... another fascinating subject - but so is the apple tree. Pete Brown talked a little about it's vagaries and unpredictability in cultivation. We all have out favourite apples but do you know that all Bramley apples originated from one tree? Or any other variety? This book explores apples from around the world and their history. Another for my 'wish list'

Climbing Trees at Curious Arts

By The Mole

(This event was part of Niddfest Comes South)

Do you ever look at a tree and think "I could pull myself up on that branch, climb onto that one and work my up" and then move on without even approaching the tree? This certainly happens to me but one day Jack Cooke did approach that tree and started climbing. And since then he has climbed tree after tree after tree. Many of his trees have been in London where, believe it or not, there are 3,000,000 trees.

This book is written so that you can 'dip in' and out of as he tells of different trees he has climbed. Trees where you bump into someone sitting eating their lunch. Trees where someone dials 999 because they think you are going to commit suicide. Trees where you ask a passing stranger for a leg up to get started. Trees where things don't go quite as planned. Bumps and scrapes are the order of the day but you get to see so much from up there as well as in the tree itself. I may start climbing trees again myself. Certainly one I shall be looking to read soon.

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Susanna Beard

by Maryom

Sunday morning was sunny and bright, and a perfect day for relaxing in deckchairs in the small Arcadia tent, to listen to Paul Blezard chat to Susanna Beard about her debut novel Dare To Remember. After a career in PR, promoting everything from wifi to wine, Susanna wanted to pursue her dream of writing a novel, and while doing so enrolled on one of the Faber courses, through which such a lot of authors have come to notice.

She wasn't setting out to write a crime novel as such, but just wrote a story and ignored which genre it might fall into. In the end, Dare to Remember is a mix of crime, thriller and psychological drama, not easily falling into one single category, and is the story of a woman recovering from a violent attack. Following it, Lisa cuts herself off from friends and family, and leaves town for the quiet of the country, but even there she can't escape what happened. Trauma has wiped her memory of the awful events, yet glimpses insist on coming back to her, and the only way forward for her seems to be to re-encounter the past.

While plotting and writing, Susanna found she needed to do research - into trauma, PTSD, victim support and the restorative Justice Council. Even though a lot of the details didn't actually find their way into the book, she felt they were needed for her to understand the emotions and process Lisa was undergoing. Susanna read a short section of Lisa having a 'panic attack' in her local village store after seeing the butcher carrying a knife, and she really seems to have caught the horror that overwhelms Lisa at that point.


A question often asked of debut authors is What next? Well, Susanna is ahead of the game, and her second novel, this time set in Lithuania, is already with her publishers.

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Eimear McBride

by Maryom

Usually I feel the public (including me) goes along to a book event to see an author that they've read and loved, but  I was drawn along to this event for the opposite reason -  I've heard such a lot about Eimear McBride's work but not read any of it!
It was impossible to miss the excitement among the book blogging community over her first novel A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing, but somehow I'd flagged it as 'to read when there's time', and then forgotten it. Then her second book was published and I found myself lagging even further behind, but also at that place where you begin to wonder if anyone ever could live up to the hype (and having seen the reviews on you-know-where while writing this piece they're mixed to say the least!) Hearing McBride talk about, and read from, her book seemed like the ideal way to get to know her and her work better - and, from the snippet I heard, I now want to rush out and read both books!
Georgina Godwin started the event by discussing McBride's early life, and its possible influence on her work - she was born in Liverpool to Irish parents, whose work as psychiatric nurses undoubtedly opened the door on a world of emotionally and mentally disturbed people. The family moved to Sligo when McBride was three, and since then she's moved to England (London, this time for drama school), back to Ireland, back again to England and somewhere in between lived in Russia. Her first novel, A Girl is A Half-formed Thing accompanied her on some of these travels until a random conversation in a Norwich book shop led to her meeting her future publishers Galley Beggar Press. The original print run was for only 500 copies, then the Times Literary Supplement ran a favourable review and the number was doubled. All sold out in a month!
Meanwhile, McBride had started writing The Lesser Bohemians - working on it for nine years and at one point having written 800 pages before cutting most of it.

She admits to being influenced by both Dostoyevsky - for his concept of hidden narrative, which isn't strictly necessary to the storyline but which when revealed gives a whole new slant to it - and Joyce (though a bit tired of being asked about him, as if there's no other author an Irish writer can be compared to) for his use of language, and stream of consciousness style. Her acting training plays a role in her writing as she tries to make language do the same as Stanislavsky's 'method' does, incorporating everything both important and trivial, so inhabiting the character in a way that the reader becomes privy to everything inside and out.

All in all a fascinating insight into the author and her work. This is the publisher's 'blurb' for The Lesser Bohemians -

"An eighteen-year-old Irish girl arrives in London to study drama and falls violently in love with an older actor. This older man has a disturbing past that the young girl is unprepared for. The young girl has a troubling past of her own. This is her story and their story.
The Lesser Bohemians is about sexual passion. It is about innocence and -the loss of it. At once epic and exquisitely intimate, it is a celebration of the dark and the light in love"    - 

and following a short reading from it, I'm determined that at last I WILL get hold of a copy and read it!

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Matt Haig

by Maryom

The second author event I attended over the Curious Arts weekend was again held in the "Big Top" tent and pulled in quite a crowd to listen to Matt Haig talk about his latest novel, "How To Stop Time". 

Over the last twelve years Matt Haig has been writing books for both children and adults, but is perhaps best known for his recent non-fiction, Reasons To Stay Alive, dealing with depression and how he came through it. After a book which proved so harrowing to write, Matt decided to turn to something a little more fun - two children's books, A Boy Called Christmas and The Girl Who Saved Christmas - and now one for adults - How To Stop Time, which he describes as a love story/action adventure/philosophy mash up.

It's the story of Tom Hazzard, who may look like an average 40-something history teacher, but has a secret - due to  a rare condition, he ages very, very slowly, and has been alive for 439 years! Asked if this is something that would appeal to him, Matt answered with a very definite "No", as a self-confessed hypochondriac he thought it wouldn't be much fun. 

Writing this story does seem to have been fun though, from creating the character of the "baddy" to indulging in his love of social history, and being "in charge" of Tom's adventures, allowed Matt to visit some of his favourite historical periods and meet the historical figures he'd have loved to encounter - from Shakespeare to Captain Cook, Charlie Chaplin to Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald, Tom gets to rub shoulders with them all!

Matt's future plans include projects as diverse as a third children's "Christmas" book, Father Christmas and Me, and collaborating on song-writing Andy Burrows (who I was to see later that evening as drummer for Tom Odell), while plans are afoot for "How to Stop Time" to be filmed with Benedict Cumberbatch. Exciting times!

The Mole's Curious Arts Festival - 2017

Murray Lachlan Young

The last event of Friday was Murray Lachlan Young.

Simon Evans (R4 fame)

Saturday and Sunday, for me, both started with Breakfast Club in Drift, and a grand way to start the day it is. It does surprise me each time with how close to my own political views the panels (some the same, some changed) are each day and the inclusion of Simon Evans to truly lighten the mood this year was extremely good. I will forgive the chairman his gaffs on Le Tour De France and Chris Froome - not everyone follows cycling and reads biographies like The Climb. In fact the only downside this year was not being able to watch the last two days of TDF live.

Saturday continued with Robert McCrum and Every Third Thought. After suffering a stroke he found himself starting to reflect on mortality and death more than he ever had before and in this book he explores, through research with experts in their fields, what death is and what, if anything, comes next.

I was then fortunate to catch the last few minutes of the Edward Goldsmith Discussion which had a panel of Bron Taylor, Helen Scales, Valentine Waner, and Tony Juniper. The audience had been large - and not because of the weather I believe - and had many questions hinged around reconnecting with nature. This was an important theme that many would be considering over the course of the weekend.

I then enjoyed Eimar McBride's event in which Georgina Godwin talked to her about her latest book The Lesser Bohemians - Maryom plans on discussing this event further so keep an eye out for it.

Dylan and I managed to catch some of comedy, particularly Ed Byrne who completely failed to disappoint, as ever!

Junius Meyvant in the Gorse tent

Music in Gorse followed and Junius Meyvant - a band from Iceland - were extremely good. This was to be followed by Whoredogs with John Illsley of Dire Straits. At this point the tent (huge though it was) became too crowded to be safe for Dylan so we went for a walk but could still enjoy the music from the adjacent field. Later Tom Odell took to the stage to delight the crowd - and the rest of us around the site.

Southern Companion

After Breakfast Club on Sunday morning I caught the excellent Dave Eggers before moving on to catch Pete Brown and his event about beer. Well you would wouldn't you? More on this from me later.

I later caught Jack Cooke - a man of quality who immediately recognised in Dylan one fabulous dog - in his event about tree climbing and left me wishing I'd climbed more trees in the past. Once again, more on this event later. This event was part of a few that made up Niddfest Comes South and the synergy between the two festivals is very distinctive.

The last event of the festival, sadly, for me was to be catching Southern Companion in the acoustic tent, a place I'd dipped into a few times over the weekend. But with over 200 miles to get home and it threatening to take up to 5 hours to drive - we had to miss the comedy (which again was headlined by Ed Byrne) and The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra playing the music of Bond. Perhaps another year we will be able to stay Sunday night.

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Joanna Trollope

by Maryom

I'd hoped to start my round of book-ish events at this year's Curious Arts Festival on Friday, with Rachel Joyce, but our late arrival due to traffic delays put paid to that, and so I had to wait till the next day, and Joanna Trollope's event. She's one of those authors frequently referred to as a house-hold name, and most of us will have read at least one of her books or seen TV adaptations of them - along with others of my age, I probably 'discovered' her through Ch 4's The Rector's Wife back in 1994. In her long career she's written twenty novels as Joanna Trollope, and more under the pseudonym of Caroline Harvey.

On Saturday, she was talking to Rowan Pelling about her latest novel, City of Friends - the story of four women, firm friends from their university days, who by chance rather than design studied economics  and went on to have jobs in the finance sector, and specifically of Stacey, who, as the book opens, has just lost her job at a top private equity firm. 

Asked why she chose to write a novel centring on the 'work' aspect of women's lives, Trollope replied that there have been endless novels about women and relationships, women and family, women and sex, women and children, but the relationship between women and work hasn't been explored anything like as much. She then chose that the 'work' in question should be that of finance as this is still seen as a male bastion, and placed her characters in management consultancy, private equity and banks.  

During her research for City of Friends, Trollope spoke to many women working in Canary Wharf, in positions similar to those of her characters, and came to believe that there's only really space for one career-minded person in a marriage, and echoed an assumption that many of us have encountered - that no matter who is the major breadwinner in a family, dealing with the 'human' problems of children or ageing parents is the responsibility of women. She also feels that the dream of having it all - high-powered job, loving husband, lovely home, adoring kids - is basically just that, a dream, a modern fairy tale to replace the one of marrying a prince and living happy ever after in a castle.

In writing her characters, Trollope hopes to recreate that friend you have, who most of the time you'll agree, and get on well, with, but at others they'll irritate you beyond imagining. So, while she agrees at times with things they say or actions they take, she definitely doesn't agree with everything they say or do; in fact. it's necessary for a character to at times behave in ways she doesn't approve of, as they must above all be true to themselves, otherwise they lose credibility. 

In answer to the 'how do you start a new story', Trollope explained that she starts with a theme - this time, as mentioned above, it's that of the relationship between women and their work - then adds in the characters. As regards structuring the book, she plans the first quarter, and knows how the story will end, but in between events are allowed to develop as they will, within reason.

I thought it was a particularly interesting author talk, raising matters of equality, feminism, and our attitudes towards career women which stretched far beyond the boundaries of the novel itself.

Curious Arts Festival - 21/23rd July 2017

By The Mole

Izzy Bizu

Once again we were given the opportunity to attend the festival with complimentary tickets. Last years event was blessed with magnificent weather and a fabulous time was had so we were delighted to be attending once again.

Before we set out we knew the forecast was not as good as last year but we remained undaunted. We arrived as it started to rain and immediately started the erection of the tent which went well and we were soon undercover.

The drive down had taken longer than planned and we missed the first events we had hoped to see. Having arrived late we needed tea - a cuppa and so we went to research food and drink. The range had been extremely wide last year and we found that the range was equally diverse this year but different concessions with the addition (a wonderful addition) of one doing 24 hour tea and coffee. Yes, towards the end of the weekend they were looking tired but still provided our essential brew with a smile.

The larger Gorse tent

Gurkha curry was our choice of food and we then settled to some music in the much larger that last year's Gorse tent. Larger was a significant theme this year as, in its fourth year, the festival continues to grow. Friday night's headline act was Izzy Bizu whose "White Tiger" you are sure to have heard on the radio. We then caught Murray Lachlan Young, the poet, before retiring for the first night under canvas for a year.

Sunshine across tents

The camping area and car park, throughout the weekend, reflected the increased size and success of the event as a whole - as did the names on the program. The weather did curtail some of the children's outdoor activities but the many children didn't seem to mind and attended many of the adult events instead - although the new acoustic stage which was on throughout the day was a very popular choice.

Dylan admiring the car park

And dogs... Just as many dogs as last year with owners behaving very responsibly and causing other festival goers no nuisance whatsoever. Dylan enjoyed it all immensely and his fan club, once again, increased in size many fold.

On Saturday we saw Joanna Trollope, Matt Haig, Eimear McBride, Robert McCrum and all with an ongoing musical background from The Wandering Hearts, Marthagunn  and others in the acoustic tent. The evening was rounded off with music, once again, in Gorse where Whoredogs with John Illsley performed including music from Dire Straits followed by Tom Odell! And comedy... Simon Evans (R4) presented comedy with George Egg, Ferdy Ray, Paul Tonkinson and headlining with Mock The Week's Ed Byrne!

Sunday saw names such as Dave Eggers, Julian and Isabel Bannerman, Susanna Beard, Pete Brown and Jack Cooke to the strains of Southern Companion, and Morrissey and Marshall amongst others from the acoustic tent. Sunday's Gorse line up started with MJ's Big Choir (which included attendees of the festival) giving their much rehearsed performance and rounding off the festival with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing music from the bond movies. Comedy, once again introduced by Simon Evans, was headlined by the inimitable Ed Byrne.

You never know when you may have a "poet emergency"

We will be having quite a lot more to say about the festival in the coming days so watch out for it all. We did enjoy it immensely despite needing a slight push to get the car off the field at the end.

Almost time for Curious Arts Festival ...

by Maryom

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you might remember how much we loved our first trip to Curious Arts Festival last year, so we're delighted to have been asked back again. For those of you not 'in the know' it's held in the grounds of Pylewell Park, near Lymington in the New Forest, and this year will run from 21-23 July. You can visit for the day, evening, or all weekend, and, a little unusually for a book festival, events aren't individually charged - one ticket gives entry to all events within your chosen time-slot (though some workshops have a small extra fee).


As the date is getting closer, I've been keeping an eye on the programme, so the important question is Who would I like to see?
Firstly, the literary 'headliners' -

On Friday -  Rachel Joyce, author of best-selling The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,  will be there as part of a tour promoting her latest book, The Music Shop ;

Saturday - Joanna Trollope, author of so many highly-acclaimed novels, talking about her most recent,  City of Friends;

Matt Haig discussing his recently published How to Stop Time, the tale of a man who is much, much older than you'd think, and which is to be filmed starring Benedict Cumberbatch;


On Sunday there's American author Dave Eggers whose Heroes of the Frontier is a tale of one woman's escape to the wilderness
and poet Lemn Sissay.




Then I'd really like to catch Eimear McBride,  whose debut novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing won so many awards  - and there are others I know little or nothing about but sound like they could be interesting. Robert McCrum talking  "life, death and the endgame" in Every Third Thought; Rick Stroud's Lonely Courage telling the stories of female spies employed in WWII; Tony Juniper and What's Really Happening To Our Planet; marine biologist Dr Helen Scales; gardeners to HRH the Prince of Wales Isabel and Julian Bannerman ... I'm just hoping none of these events clash ...

Ed Byrne

The literary events aren't the sum total of Curious Arts Festival though - there's a comedy line up each evening, headed by Ed Byrne on Saturday, and music later at night - ranging from Tom Odell to the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra with the Music of Bond.

Tom Odell

Each day has a selection of  "Curious Adventures" - the festival opens with a cricket match on Friday afternoon, you could join in with a choir, catch a drinks masterclass or listen to the recitation of Paradise Lost, try your hand at life drawing or sculpting something in clay, take part in Jane Austen parlour games, or chill out in the Kanga Wellness Spa.




For children there are arts. crafts and musical activities all day long, writing and songwriting workshops, and films and cartoons to start and end the day. They can go Hunting the Jabberwocky with Jack Union, Victorian Monster Hunter, or on a nature walk where they'll hear tales of insects and the natural world. They probably won't even need the bedtime story session to send them to sleep.

And, as if  the festival wasn't wonderful enough already, there's the food ... alongside pizzas and a BBQ offering rare breed sausages and a hog roast,  there's Japanese cuisine, Nepalese curries, seafood, a pop-up bakery, and a specialist vegetarian supplier, with beers, cider and sparkling wine by Chapel Down, and cocktails by Fever Tree to round off your meal.

All that's left to chance is the weather. Hopefully it will be as gloriously sunny a weekend as last year.

For more info, tickets, details of camping/glamping options, or to pre-book your Curious Adventure check out the Curious Arts website

Curious Arts Festival - round up

by Maryom

I think it fair to say we all loved our weekend at Curious Arts. Sometimes we attended the same events, more often we drifted off our own ways.

One wristband gave entrance to anything and everything, so for the majority of events there was no additional ticketing (a small number of events had limited numbers and so booking was essential, and sometimes there was a small additional cost). Because of this, I felt more inclined to take a chance or two on authors I'd heard of but never read - Andrew Miller, for example - The same applies to Harry Parker, ex-soldier turned author, and his novel about a soldier whose legs are blown off - hearing him speak convinced me this is a novel I should read.

Another advantage was that the audience was able to wander in and out of author events - something which isn't generally allowed, so if one event finishes at say 2pm, and another starts at the same time, you won't be able to see both. Here I was able to leave early or join an event a few minutes in. I think it's a great way to do things. The only down-side is that dashing straight from event A to B leaves no time for buying books or chatting to authors.




Although I mainly split my time between author events during the day, and music at night, the Mole and the Teen were off doing other things - meditation, a panel-style discussion of the morning papers, learning how to be a lazy guru, watching the early evening comedy acts. We saw so much that's it's hard to believe we were only there two days!




We've covered events in greater detail at the links below - most are to other posts here at OurBookReviewsOnline, a couple (as noted) are to other blogs/websites

By Maryom

A Quick Look
My First Festival (MaryomsThoughts)

and author event coverage;
Meg Rosoff
Andrea Wulf
Renee Knight
Joanna Cannon
Harry Parker
Andrew Miller

By The Mole

Family Friendly/Dog Friendly

By Libby

Festival Review:Curious Arts (Cultured Vultures)

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Andrew Miller

by Maryom

Andrew Miller's event was another one that I tried on spec, and found fascinating. He's and author I've seen highly praised by critics and award-givers, but somehow I've never been persuaded to read his work - but having heard him talk, I shall be adding his latest novel, The Crossing, to my 'must read' list.






Miller's approach to The Crossing started with the central enigmatic character Maud, and thoughts of snug spaces, boats, and a voyage, but he didn't know where it would all lead.
An important aspect that came out of his conversation with Paul Blezard was that Miller likes to write a book that readers don't quite 'get' - that for a while has the reader wondering 'where's this all going?' and leaves them at the end, wondering 'what was that all about then?'  A book, he believes, should take risks for both him as author and for the reader.

 Although he's sailed in the past, Miller put in time for practical research, re-acquainting himself with small boats and yachts off Salcombe and round the Western Isles, so that when he sat down to write he could imagine himself there on Maud's boat and capture the sights, smells, and constant slight discomfort of being cramped and damp.
This ties in with a comment he made about writing to feel engaged with the world but not overwhelmed - if you're out in the rain, he says, you're likely to just want to get inside and dry; writing about being out in the rain, you stop, try to describe how it falls, and how you feel. That is enough to make me want to read his writing!

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Harry Parker

by Maryom

Harry Parker's debut novel, Anatomy of a Soldier, is one I've heard a lot about but not read, so this was one of those events that at a 'pay-as-you-go' book festival I might have missed. As it was, I took a chance on his event and I'm glad I caught it.

Anatomy of a Soldier is the story of Capt Tom Barnes, BA5799, who loses both his legs as the result of an IED explosion, and it clearly draws on Parker's own experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, although the novel's war-zone is never defined.

Instead of going for a first person, biographical-style account, Parker chose to reveal events though the 'eyes' of 45 inanimate objects, closely associated with Tom Barnes, his family and the people who planted the IED. Each object narrates a chapter of Barnes' story, starting with the explosion and moving backwards and forwards in time. These objects are as diverse as a tourniquet, a handbag, a bicycle, or a Persian rug but probably the most gruesome is the saw which amputates Barnes' legs - Parker admits he was trying to write a chapter to make people 'gag'.
And as if this wasn't a challenge enough for a debut author, Parker started out with the interesting concept that the chapters would be self-contained, and possible to read in any order, but abandoned this idea to give him better control over the unwinding of the  plot.

All in all, the event gave me the feeling that this book is a far cry from the slightly sentimental, perhaps overly-patriotic, gung ho read I'd expected, and I shall be adding it to my 'must read' list.


By the way, there's no photo of the actual event because this was one I took the dog along to. It's a lovely idea, but hanging on to his lead makes note-taking difficult and photos almost impossible.

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Joanna Cannon

 by Maryom

Joanna Cannon has scored a massive hit with her debut novel The Trouble with Goats and Sheep - hitting the bestsellers' lists, being translated into innumerable foreign languages, and, as if it matters, one of my favourite books of this year. Coincidentally, she lives quite near me, so I've seen her at book events before but I couldn't NOT see her again, when we were both in the same place.

Cannon isn't one of those writers who always knew that was their calling in life. She left school at 15, going back into education later to retrain as a doctor, but the one thing med-school didn't prepare her for was the emotional impact of the job, and to help her deal with it, she started writing a blog - not discussing any of her patients but talking about her own emotional response to the people she saw. From this she moved on to work on her novel, getting up at 3 in the morning to write (!), then trying to pull in another hour or so during her lunch break.

At this point she was working as a psychiatrist, and it was a profession that taught her to look beyond the label we might put on people - such as alcoholic, or OCD - and see the real person behind. To this she added the misguided public condemnation of Chris Jeffries over the murder of Joanna Yeates - again a case of judging someone on appearance. She believes that generally we should think more kindly of people, be ready to give then the benefit of the doubt and not jump to assumptions. All these thoughts came together for The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, in which, when something odd happens in the quiet suburban atmosphere of The Avenue, the accusing finger of popular opinion has a ready scapegoat to point at.

Interviewer Carrie Plitt was curious why The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is set in the long heatwave of 1976. Mainly due to nostalgia, admitted Cannon, - for the bay City Rollers and Angel Delight, and a time when children were allowed to play freely in the streets - but also from wanting something to bring the residents of The Avenue together - and nothing does that to British people like the weather!

And, possibly that question that authors dread the most, what about her next book? Without going into too much detail we were given some clues - it will be narrated by an elderly woman, and be about growing old, acts of kindness and the legacy one might leave. I can't wait to read it!

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Renee Knight

by Maryom

For my third event of the festival - and bear in mind this is still only Saturday lunchtime - I went to see Renee Knight, author of psychological thriller Disclaimer, who'd whizzed down from Harrogate Crime Festival to chat with fellow author SJ Watson (Before I Go To Sleep, Second Life).
Disclaimer is the story of a middle-aged woman who one day idly picking up a book discovers that the tale told within it bears a remarkable similarity to something that once happened to her... It grew out of a previous, unpublished story which drew heavily on real life events, during the writing of which Knight began to see how awful it must be to pick up a book written by a stranger but based on your life ... and Disclaimer was born.

It's the sort of 'domestic noir' novel that seems to romp up the bestseller charts and Disclaimer is currently No1 in the Sunday Times bestsellers list, and has been translated into 30 languages. Both authors' novels fall into this bracket, of thrillers which are set firmly in seemingly happy domestic situations; the 'chill factor' being that readers can easily imagine themselves transported into such a situation, normal and happy on the surface but with secrets lurking underneath, and, after all, how well do we really know anyone? Both agreed though that 'dometic noir' is not a new genre as such but has been around for a long while - Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Patricia Highsmith's novels being cited as earlier examples.
Asked about influences on her writing, Renee Knight named Lionel Shriver, Zoe Heller, and Colm Toibin, and is currently reading The Circle by Dave Eggers.

The discussion moved on to their fairly similar routes to publication - the first bad novel now hidden in a drawer, the better one that gets published, the usefulness of writing courses (for getting an agent or maybe just for encouraging the budding author to make time to write), and, when all this has paid off, suddenly having to learn to write to publishers' deadlines. The life of a successful author doesn't just involve sitting in solitude writing - there are signings and book events such as this one to attend; fortunately both authors have discovered them to be surprisingly enjoyable - they certainly are for the audience.