10:00am – 11:00am

Jude Simpson

At the Village Hall

Poet, wordsmith, writer and performer: Jude Simpson has something for the whole family. Bursting with joyful humour and witty wordplay, Jude takes the audience on a mind- bending journey through the sounds of language, and the language of sounds. Her children’s show ‘A Noise Annoys’ was created for the Junction Theatre in Cambridge, and she brings this exciting production all the way to Barkway this October.

Using poems, rhymes and tongue-twisters, and adding physical humour, improvised sounds and hilarious props, Jude finds the joy and annoyance in the things we hear. She asks questions like: Is it a noise that’s annoying, or the person making it? Do pingers ever ding? If you had a pet badger, what would you call it? This is a show that will engage children with the spoken and written word, and leave them full of joy at the possibilities of language. Suitable for all ages.

11:30am – 12:30pm

Jamie Hull

At the Village Hall

A true and inspirational story, Jamie Hull talks about his book ‘Life on a Thread’. He’s a mountain leader, all-terrain expedition leader, ski instructor, sky-diver, hot air balloon pilot – and medical miracle.

After his life-changing air accident, the former SAS trooper has become a high profile Ambassador for Help for Heroes, and is a familiar face on the lecture circuit as a tireless campaigner for many charities. He has competed as a cyclist in the Invictus Games, completed the Race Across America and taken part in many of the toughest challenges in extreme sports and outdoor pursuits.

1:00pm – 2:00pm

Lottie Mills

At the Village Hall

Lottie Mills’ ‘Monstrum’ mixes supernatural horror and neo-gothic motifs. A haunting and luridly beautiful collection of short stories, it asks what it means to be different in a world that values perfection at any cost.

Lottie won the BBC Young Writers’ Award for her short story ‘The Changeling’ in 2020 after having been previously nominated in 2018, she has written pieces for British Vogue and BBC Radio 4, and has appeared on programmes including Look East, Life Hacks, and Woman’s Hour to discuss her writing. A recent Cambridge graduate, Lottie discusses her debut novel with Jude.

2:30pm – 3:30pm

James Riley

At the Village Hall

Fellow of English Literature at Girton College, Cambridge, Dr James Riley specialises in the counterculture of the late twentieth century. In his cult hit book ‘The Bad Trip’ he focused on life in the Sixties, and in ‘Well Beings’ he examined the Seventies origins of our current obsession with wellness.

This kaleidoscopic presentation ‘Scream and Shout’ is illustrated with images, film clips and musical extracts, supported by Royston Radio. Not ignoring the dark side of a unique era, it highlights the iconic trends, events, legends and extraordinary personalities of the Sixties via its revolutionary pop music, plus punk and heavy metal, that has reverberated down the decades and changed society and culture for ever.

4:00pm – 5:00pm

Sir Richard Evans

At the Village Hall

Sir Richard Evans is Regius Professor Emeritus of History at Cambridge. He was President of Wolfson College, Cambridge, from 2010 to 2017 and Provost of Gresham College, London, from 2014 to 2020. He is the author of numerous books on modern German history, including ‘The Coming of the Third Reich’ (2003), ‘The Third Reich in Power’ (2005) and ‘The Third Reich at War’ (2008), which have been translated into fourteen languages.

He was the principal expert witness in the unsuccessful libel action brought by David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books over her allegations of Holocaust denial and the falsification of historical evidence, as seen in the movie ‘Denial’ (2016). In 2012 he was knighted for services to scholarship. Richard will discuss his new book, ‘Hitler’s People’, hosted by James Riley.

5:30pm – 6:30pm

Tracy Waples

At the Village Hall

Tracey Waples is a journalist who published her first novel, ‘I Want Never Gets’, a psychological thriller, in 2018. Her second novel, a dark family drama called ‘The Little Sister’, was published in 2023.

She’s currently at work on her third title. As an antidote to many solitary hours writing, Tracey decided to train as a Pilates instructor and graduated at Masters level. Married with two grown up sons, she lives in a village not far from Barkway.

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7:00pm – 8:30pm

Christopher Hadley

At the Village Hall

Christopher Hadley is a journalist and author writing at the wonderful intersection of history and folklore. His pieces have appeared in The Independent, The Guardian, The Times, London Review of Books and Esquire, among many other publications.

His latest book, ‘The Road: a story of Romans and ways to the past’ was published in 2023 by William Collins to critical and popular acclaim – shooting it into the best-seller lists. It features a section of lost Roman road, from Braughing. His previous book, the much-loved ‘Hollow Places: an unusual history of land and legend’, was published in 2019 and was a Sunday Times book of the year, featuring the long-lost folklore of Hertfordshire.

10:00am – 11:45am

Low to No-Budget Filmmaking

At the Pavillion

Nicola Irvine hosts a fascinating workshop on the art of creating no-budget films based on her own experiences. She is a writer, director, editor, and founder of film production company Landlady Films. Her short film, ‘FIRST DRAFT’, won Best Student Film at New York International Women’s Film Festival in 2021.

Nicola is currently completing her MSc at Cambridge University in Writing for Performance, where she is writing a dark-comedy audio drama series being mentored by Jessica Dromgoole. Nicola’s self-produced horror-fantasy audio drama ‘The Moonlight Circus’ was recently featured on BBC Radio 3. In this workshop, she will discuss her process in making low- to no-budget short films. Suitable for ages 12+.

12:00pm – 1:45pm

Building Community Through Story Exchange

At the Pavillion

Co-artistic directors of Narrative Alchemy, Gemma Paget and Sean McGrath, began their journey together in 2004 at The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival. Their applied theatre-in- education company is dedicated to using theatre and film to address complex social issues. Their work has toured to hundreds-of-thousands of children, young people and professionals throughout the UK, as well as Europe, the US and Canada.

Gemma is a creative therapist who holds a Master’s Degree in dramatherapy from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge; and trained as an actress at Manchester Metropolitan’s School of Theatre. Sean trained as an actor at The Oxford School of Drama, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), an associate director for The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, and is currently completing his MSc at Cambridge University in Writing for Performance. This workshop will explore the importance of stories in connecting with communities.

2:00pm – 3:45pm

Writing a Podcast Drama

At the Pavillion

Helen Cross has written audio and podcast drama for BBC Radio for twenty years, including two seasons of the acclaimed BBC Limelight series ‘English Rose’ and most recently the BBC Audio Drama Flixborough 74. Helen is also the author of four novels, including ‘My Summer of Love’ which was adapted into the 2004 BAFTA winning film of the same name starring Emily Blunt; has two original screenplays currently in development with UK film companies; and has had short stories published in various magazines and anthologies, including most recently The Manchester Review, Popshot, and Digbeth Stories.

Helen has lectured on creative writing for numerous universities including the MA in Creative Writing at UEA and Cambridge University and runs her own popular online writing courses. In this workshop, she breaks down the essential elements of creating a podcast.

4:00pm – 5:45pm

How to Get Published

At the Pavillion

Chaired by bestselling author Alex Prior, this event shares the secrets behind How to Get Published. More of a conversation between the authors than a workshop, you’ll hear from our four authors in detail about their personal publishing journeys before the event opens up to a led discussion and questions from the audience. This is a unique opportunity to get insider tips, inspiration and information on routes to realise your own publishing dreams.

Alex Prior has had an eclectic career encompassing Television and Film, Arts Management, and School Leadership. He has written scripts, commercial copy, and even musicals. The Lost Case Files of Sherlock Holmes was his first book, published in November 2020, and it went on to become a bestseller and received rave reviews.

Spencer Edwards: Emperor of the Galaxy is his new novel for young adults and the young at heart and is the first of a science fiction series. He cites collecting weird and wonderful ephemera and palaeontology as among his lifelong interests. www.alexpriorauthor.com

Kate Moore is a multi-award-winning, New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author. She writes across a variety of genres but is best known for her history books, including The Radium Girls. Before becoming an author, Kate worked for over a decade in publishing, rising to become Editorial Director at Penguin Random House. Visit her at www.kate-moore.com.

J.S. Watts is a British poet and novelist who weaves the fantastical and the literary with other vibrant strands to create glowing, multi-faceted, multi-award-nominated writing. Her poetry, short stories and non-fiction appear in a variety of publications in Britain and internationally and have been broadcast on BBC and independent radio. She has edited a variety of magazines and anthologies and, to date, has had nine books published: five of poetry and four novel. See www.jswatts.co.uk

Damien O’Dell is an author and paranormal historian who has been interested in the unexplained since childhood. Damien has authored a series of paranormal books including Chicksands Priory – England’s Most Haunted House?, Ghostly Bedfordshire Reinvestigated, Paranormal Bedfordshire, Paranormal Cambridgeshire and Paranormal Hertfordshire.