More big names announced for Jersey Festival of Words

Sunday 27 May 2018

A best-selling author and a top-selling crime writer are two of the latest names to confirm they’ll be taking part in this year’s Jersey Festival of Words.

The event which is now in its fourth year is taking place from the 26th to 30th September.

Pictured: One of the big draws at this year's festival is likely to be best-selling author Joanna Trollope.

One of the latest names to confirm they’ll be taking part is Joanna Trollope whose 20-plus novels about modern love, marriage and community life have kept her among the best-sellers for over 30 years. Her latest novel, An Unsuitable Match, explores the challenges of love in later life, with the reactions of grown-up children to contend with.

Pictured: Peter James, voted Best Crime Writer of All Time, who's recently moved to Jersey has sold more then 19 million books (credit: James Clarke).

Also confirmed is an author Voted Best Crime Writer of All Time by W H Smith readers and winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger, Peter James. He’s recently become a Jersey resident and plans to write a novel based in the island soon. His latest novel, Dead If You Don’t, is the 14th to feature Brighton-based detective DS Roy Grace in a series that has sold over 19 million copies and been translated into 37 languages.

Novelists signed up for the Jersey Festival of Words 2018 also include some of the most acclaimed new names in modern fiction.

Libby Page’s first novel, The Lido, was snapped up for international publication within hours of submission. It tells the story of a public bathing pool in London under threat from property developers and how such old-style lidos, like Jersey’s own at Havre des Pas, have the power to bring communities together.

Jersey Occupation heroine and groundbreaking artist Claude Cahun is the subject of Never Anyone But You, a new novel by Rupert Thomson, whose earlier work, The Insult, was named by David Bowie as one of the 100 Must-Read Books of All Time.

Libby Page and Rupert Thomson will be joined in the festival programme by Tor Udall, whose debut novel A Thousand Paper Birds received rave reviews for its strange and beautiful interweaving of five lives through a year at Kew Gardens; and costume expert Lucy Adlington, who will give a 1940s ‘history wardrobe’ presentation to highlight her novel The Red Ribbon, about the dressmakers of Auschwitz.

Pictured: Lucy Adlington will give a 1940s 'history wardrobe' presentation to highlight her novel The Red Ribbon.

And Jersey’s own aspiring novelists will have the opportunity to gather expert advice from the director of the fiction programme at the Faber Academy, Richard Skinner, author of Writing a Novel, which draws on his years of experience as a writer and teacher.