Gladfest 2021: Essex Girls: for Profane and Opinionated Women Everywhere with Sarah Perry



Essex Girls are disreputable, disrespectful and disobedient.

They speak out of turn, too loudly and too often, in an accent irritating to the ruling classes.

Their bodies are hyper-sexualised and irredeemably vulgar.

They are given to intricate and voluble squabbling.

They do not apologise for any of this.

And why should they?

In this exhilarating feminist defence of the Essex girl, Sarah Perry re-examines her relationship with her much maligned home county. She summons its most unquiet spirits, from Protestant martyr Rose Allin to the indomitable Abolitionist Anne Knight, sitting them alongside Audre Lorde, Kim Kardashian and Harriet Martineau, and showing us that the Essex girl is not bound by geography. She is a type, representing a very particular kind of female agency, and a very particular kind of disdain: she contains a multitude of women, and it is time to celebrate them.

Essex Girls cover

Sarah Perry, who lives in Norwich, is the author of Essex Girls, Melmoth, The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood. She has been the UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence in Prague and a Gladstone's Library writer-in-residence. Her work has been translated into twenty two languages.


Tickets for this online event cost £5. Please order here. This talk will commence at noon on September 11 (BST/UTC+1). Click here for a shortcut link to all of the available tickets.

As part of a new access initiative here at the Library, all our non-residential events will have one free place available. Details coming soon.

Please note that tickets for this event are e-tickets. Book online and have your ticket emailed directly to you – there is no need to print out an e-ticket for a digital event. 

From 2021 you will have the option to save your tickets in your Gladstone Bag! For more information see here.

A print and collect service is available to those without access to email facilities for a small charge to cover our admin costs. Call 01244 532350 or email [email protected] for more information. Printed tickets will be available to collect from Reception before the event.

Banner image by Jamie Drew.


Gladfest 2023 was the tenth anniversary of our boutique literary festival! 

Held on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th September, this year we saw hundreds of attendees turn out for a very warm (in both terms of weather and companionship) event. 

Previous Writer in Residence and friend of the Library Peter Moore (Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness) returned with his latest historical investigation into international political history in 'Britain and the American Dream' on the Friday. This was followed by 
The Reading Rooms Team who presented Writing Gladstone – the Letters of an Age. Dan Richards held a well attended writing masterclass entitled Writing Adventurous non-fiction, followed by a poetry reading and presentation by Catherine Okoronkwo, poet and priest. The first day was capped off by  Following Writers and Rebels in the Spanish Civil War, a talk with a particular eye on a Virginia Woolf with Sarah Watling.

Saturday kicked off with a panel as a
 selection of Gladfest 2023 writers discuss The Amazing Power of Books. Stargazing (While Writing a Novel) with Sarah Perry gave attendees the chance to find out what the bestselling writer is working on next. Acclaimed novelist Natasha Pulley hosted a masterclass on the theme of Writing Adventurous Fiction. Then, in a change from the advertised programme, we presented a series of voices from the Library, including Trustee Llyr Williams, Developement Officer Jim Creed and volunteer and former head Librarian of Glyndwr University Paul Jeorrett. They took on the question: what is the role of knowledge in an uncertain world? In the afternoon, Natasha Pulley took to the stage to share candid moments from the world of professional writing, while a tight group of non-fiction writers attended Cymru, Cymreictod - a creative writing masterclass focused on Wales and Welsh identity with Julie Brominicks.  The last talk of the weekend was Will You Read This Please? Joanna Cannon in interview with Louisa Yates. 

Thank you to our kind sponsors for supporting this event. 


A collage of sponsor logos


Although our tenth birthday is technically in 2023, this was the tenth time we’ve hung the banners and rolled out the bunting. It’s been a thrilling, wonderful event to be part of. In 2013 we’d borrowed a stage and some chairs, and crossed our fingers that anyone would turn up; the next few years we proudly watched it grow and grow; in 2020 it didn’t happen at all; in 2021 it was almost entirely online. 
2022’s festival was somewhere in-between. For the first time it started on Friday afternoon, finishing with celebratory drinks on the Saturday night. Also, for the first time, we facilitated live online links with speakers abroad, allowing for a truly international line-up of speakers.
The roster of Friday speakers included Dipo Faloyin (appearing online from New York), Miranda Kaufmann, Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata who joined us for the Africa is not a Country – it’s a Continent panel. Bestselling author Sarah Perry ran a sold-out writing masterclass, while novelist Victoria Gosling (Before the Ruins) played ‘dark games’ with the audience, academics Simon Grennan and Michelle Keown introduced their project, Remediating Robert Louis Stevenson’s Pacific Fiction, and historian Rebecca Rideal revealed the political impact of the private lives of Mary & Anne Stuart.
On Saturday, Natasha Pulley presented a lively talk about her nuclear novel, The Half Life of Valery K, followed by Zeba Talkhani’s candid discussion of her memoir, My Past is a Foreign Country. Francesca Haig (author of The Cookbook of Common Prayer) sat in interview with Louisa Yates to discuss grief and laughter, and Suzannah Evans and Katrina Naomi gave poetic perspectives (and readings) about poetry and place. Theological scholar Linda Woodhead rounded off the weekend with an audience discussion prompted by her book, Unknowing God.  
Films of the talks were be made available through the Digital Gladstone project and remain accessible to Friends of Gladstone's Library

Gladfest 2021 was our first hybrid event, catering for a small, Covid-cautious in-person audience and several hundred online guests.

Limited by the Pandemic conditions, this festival was a fraction of the size it normally is, but it was packed to the seams with stimulating and thought-provoking talks. 

We welcomed back some of our favourite returning writers, including Sarah Perry (author of the Essex Serpent), Natasha Pulley (The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Kingdoms), Sally Magnusson (The Ninth Child) and Francis Spufford (Light Perpetual, longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize).

They were joined by newcomers Katie Hale (My Name is Monster) and Ian Bradley, who read from and spoke about his extraordinary collection of reading on death and heaven from different religious traditions (The Quiet Haven).

Our very own Peter Francis, Warden of the Library, spoke about his memoir, The Widening Circle of Us, which is available through Chester University Press.

All talks were livestreamed from our beautiful chapel space. This was not your typical Zoom conference.

In addition, attendees had first access to the premier of a film featuring esteemed author and speaker Richard Holloway and a beautiful, ambient audio piece by nature writer and novelist Melissa Harrison, as well as listening in to a panel which featured Zia Chaudhury (Just Your Average Muslim), Sophie McKeand (Rebel Sun) and Julia Forster (What a Way to Go). 

You can find out more about talks, tickets and times by following this link. Films of the talks will be made available through Digital Gladstone, which is accessible to Friends of Gladstone's Library


Thank you to our sponsors for supporting this event. 

 

We are sorry to say that Gladfest did not run in 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Due to Covid-19 Gladstone's Library was closed. If you feel you can make any kind of financial donation to support the work that we do here, and help us re-open, please click here for information.

GLADFEST IS OVER FOR ANOTHER YEAR...

...and what a year it was - 2019, the SEVENTH year of Gladfest!

THIS YEAR award-winning novelists Patrick Gale and Salley Vickers returned with their new books, while Sarah Perry, Michael Nobbs and Oliver Emanuel ran new and exclusive masterclasses. The literary world was buzzing with news of Damian Barr’s first novel and it was right here with us, and the buzz continued with Kit de Waal, Alix Nathan, and Suzette A. Hill, who all talked about their latest books.

As always, it wasn't just fiction! Melanie Reid, Damian Le Bas and Dan Richards shared their journeys and some of the UK’s most creative minds showcased their research: Joe Moran on shyness and creativity, Danny Dorling on Brexit, Charlotte Higgins on labyrinths, Rachel Hewitt on women in the mountains. And we remembered William Gladstone with our 19th Century strand - Deborah Wynne on Victorian recycling, Claire O’Callaghan on Emily Bronte and Simon Grennan on comics.

Plus there were spiritual reflections with Pádraig Ó Tuama and Zia Chaudhry, life reflections with actor Neil Pearson and a look to the future of local with Tamara Harvey and Charlie Gladstone.

If there were any sessions that you missed head over to our Soundcloud to have a listen!

View our Gladfest photo album here.

Our writers, staff, the Library and YOU all make Gladfest what it was.

THANK YOU!

With love from the Gladfest team

#Gladfest19

Gladfest 2018

Gladfest's sixth birthday - we are growing up fast!

What a year this one was.

Talks from Sunday Times bestseller Joanna Cannon (Three Things About Elsie), novelist and poet Michèle Roberts (The Walworth Beauty), Wolfson History Prize shortlisted Miranda Kaufmann (Black Tudors), narrative drawing expert Simon Grennan (Marie Duval Rediscovered), writer and critic Peter Moore (Endeavour: The Ship and the Attitude that Changed the World) and more are all available to listen to again on our SoundCloud page.

Click here to view a selection of photos from across the Gladfest weekend - can you spot yourself?

Our writers, staff, the Library and YOU all made Gladfest what it was. Thanks for coming!

Gladfest 2019 info coming soon!

Our little festival was five years old this year!

It seemed only yesterday that we said ‘hey, let’s have a festival!’ – 16 weeks later, Gladfest was born. Since then, thousands of you have been through the doors, some for the very first time. Gladfest brings together award-winning, internationally-renowned and breakthrough writers for a wonderfully eclectic weekend. We’re very proud of it.

Big names for the 2017 Gladfest lineup included TV historian Diarmaid MacCulloch (All Things Made New: The Reformation), Sarah Perry (The Essex Serpent), Sally Magnusson (Where Memories Go: Why Dementia Changes Everything), Joanna Cannon (The Trouble with Goats and Sheep), Kathryn Hughes (Victorians Undone), Francesca Haig (The Forever Ship) and BBC Official Historian Jean Seaton (Pinkoes and Traitors) and more. Listen again on SoundCloud.

What a festival it was in 2016!

Val McDermid (Splinter the Silence), Scarlett Thomas (The Seed Collectors), Michel Faber(Undying), Loyd Grossman (Benjamin West and the Struggle to be Modern), Richard Holloway(A Little History of Religion), Sarah Perry (The Essex Serpent) and more entertained us with talks and workshops across the weekend (see the full list here) and there was music from local choirs and even a harpist!

Recordings of all talks are on the Library's Soundcloud page, and you can find our Gladfest 2016 highlights video here!

You can also try to spot yourself in our photo album.

Next year is Gladfest's fifth birthday so expect a bumper edition!

We'll see you next then!

Well, what a weekend that was!

Gladfest 2015 was our most successful yet. Over two thousand of you poured through the doors, browsing Gladbooks and the outdoor Craft Market, feasting on all the delights of our bistro and bar, and contributing to interactive art in our Gladstone Room. Local choirs sang to you on both days and even the sun got in on the act.

Young people enjoyed a programme that we developed this year, just for them. Aspiring actors, directors and scriptwriters tried their hand at their chosen skill while younger children chased Charlie through the Chocolate Factory (with chocolate!) and learned about the poetry of the Welsh bard Taliesin.

And of course, there were the events. While all of our Gladfest events have been remarkable, this year really raised the bar. Sarah Dunant made a rare festival appearance to share with us all the beauty of the Italian Renaissance; Peter Francis's interview with Sarah Perry elicited thoughtful reflections upon the author's childhood and an exclusive reading of her as-yet unreleased novel, The Essex Serpent. More exclusive readings followed. Jessie Burton shared moments from her second novel, currently being written, and we were granted the privilege - never seen before - of renowned writer Michel Faber reflecting upon his life's writing at a time when he states that his time as a novelist is over.

Patrick Gale talked a packed crowd through his family history -- the inspiration for A Place Called Winter. Moving to broader history, Robyn Cadwallader explored the little that we know of anchoresses, medieval women who chose to be walled up for holy reasons and Richard Beard picked apart the fictions and legends surrounding the martyrdoms of the apostles, which appear to originate in creative writing from that very same period. Revealing the stories and the stimuli behind her complex and human characters, Melissa Harrison read from her beautiful second novel, At Hawthorn Time, and in a Gladfest first, we had a graphic novelist with us. Simon Grennan proved that comics aren't just for kids with his graphic edition of Trollope's John Caldigate. In another first, Alice Oseman is the youngest author we've yet had at Gladfest. Her chat with Louisa Yates was packed with advice for young aspiring writers.

There was plenty of non-fiction food for thought, too. Zia Chaudhry sparked debate about Islam in his talk with Peter Francis, and Patrick Barkham showed everyone just how much coastline the UK has -- and how beautiful it can be. Peter Moore demonstrated how the weather was invented and Matthew Bradley revealed the reading practices of the Victorian public.

While all the talking was going on, many of you were working hard in the Gladfest workshops. Some of the UK's foremost writers shared their hints and tips with intimate groups.

Gladfest is a festival like no other. There aren't many other festivals where authors mingle with the audience like they do here, or where authors share their inspirations and secrets like they do with our audience. With tickets only £6 for talks, Gladfest lets you experience something new. Don't miss it next year!

Recordings of Gladfest 2015 events can be found here.

Gladfest 2015 social media highlights can be found here.

Gladfest 2014 can be found here.

In 2013 we created a hugely successful, boutique, affordable festival bringing readers and internationally renowned writers together.

Gladfest 2014 expanded upon the previous year's success, offering a programme bursting at the seams with poets, writers, politicians; our very own bookshop, Gladbooks; the return of our hugely popular Craft Fair; fun and festivity; and locally sourced food produced in house at the Food for Thought coffee shop and restaurant.

Our Gladfest 2014 guests: Douglas Hurd, Edward Young, Zia Chaudhry, Michael Nobbs and Francesca Haig.

Laura Wilkinson, Katherine Angel, Katrina Naomi, Salley Vickers, Martin Daws and Robert McCrum.

Melissa Harrison, Richard Holloway, Vanessa Gebbie, Stephen May, Tania Hershman, Katrina Naomi and Tim Ridley.

Michael Nobbs, Hugh Pym, Sarah Perry, Nadene Ghouri and Natacha Tormey. 

You can hear some of our talks on our Sound Cloud page. 

View our Gladfest 2014 slideshow: