Guernsey Press

Every year writes a new chapter

THE 2018 Guernsey Literary Festival, which finished on Sunday, drew a total audience of about 6,500 people.

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Peggy Seeger in concert at St James as part of the Guernsey Literary Festival.(Picture by Chris George)

In all 4,500 tickets were sold and events in schools were watched by some 2,000 students.

Festival director Claire Allen said organisers were delighted with the turnout. The event has grown every year since the first one in 2011 and the last two had seen year-on-year increases of 25%.

‘We view the festival as a community event and we work together with local organisations and partners who help to make it happen,’ she said.

‘We had 75 events this year, which was the biggest number yet.

‘We are grateful to our 15 sponsors and we hope that they will continue their support for next year.’

Several of the events were sold out, including inspirational speaker Katie Piper, BBC Newsnight presenter Evan Davis, TV presenter and documentary maker Dr Rangan Chatterjee and editor-at-large for The Guardian newspaper Gary Younge.

This year’s festival was the sixth one. It was initially held every 18 months but for 2018 it became an annual event.

Work is already under way planning the 2019 event for next spring.

‘We are lucky that many of the authors who appear recommend others to us, so there’s a bit of a snowball affect,’ said Mrs Allen.

The festival ran for four days.

Other people to speak included former Coronation Street actress turned author Denise Welch, folk music legend Peggy Seeger and one of the UK’s foremost Brexit experts, Anand Menon.