Taking place at the Old Observer Building in Cambridge Road, it features a great line-up of seven consecutive talks from local, published authors, starting at 11am and finishing at 5:45pm.
It promises to be a day of brilliant conversation with some of the area’s brightest literary talents.
Tickets for each individual talk are priced at ten pounds, but this special ticket gives you access to all seven for only £30, a saving of £40 The authors are:
11am - 11:45am Michael Smith.
12pm - 12:45pm Sam Davey.
1pm - 1:45pm Alex Preston.
2pm - 2:45pm VG Lee.
3pm - 3:45pm David Quantick
4pm - 4:45pm Jake Arnott.
5pm - 5:45pm Patrice Lawrence.
Michael Smith is the author of Strangers on the Shore in which he explores the uncanny psychic landscape of Hastings. He details the experience of becoming a father and the disarming grief of leaving your youth and its dreams behind. The flâneuring Michael at the centre of the book has moved to Hastings, started a family and opened a bar. He is morbidly obsessed with Aleister Crowley.
It is a book about what it is like to live on the margins, sliding into a precarious middle age in turbulent times, both giving up and starting a-new.
Sam Davey is the author of The Sisters and The Sword. In the second in the Pendragon Prophecy series, she plunges into the heart of the Camelot story and the tragic, passionate blood-feud that determined the destiny of a country.
Alex Preston's latest novel is A Stranger in Corfu. On the Greek island of Vidos the past lingers like salt in the air. The inhabitants – former members of MI6 – are sent here to be forgotten. Exiled. Either too damaged or too compromised to be allowed to live freely. For years, residents make the best of their fate – old enemies reconcile, long-lost friends swim together in the warm sea and estranged lovers share a bed once more. But secrets bind tightly.
VG Lee is a novelist and short story writer. In March of this year Muswell Press published her sixth novel, a psychological thriller, Our Shadow Selves. In Hastings Book Festival ‘The Dark Side’ event Lee will be talking about coming late to writing – her first book appeared in 2001 when she was fifty.
David Quantick is an author, screen writer and scriptwriter for radio and TV. A former writer for the New Musical Express, he contributed to landmark UK comedies such as On the Hour, The Day Today, Brass Eye, The Thick of It, and co-wrote HBO’s Veep, winning an Emmy in 2015. His novels include Sparks, The Mule, All My Colors, and Night Train, and he has authored writing guides such as How to Write Everything.
He has recently published And Other Stories, a short story collection, and Imagine a Friend, a novella for all ages. His new novel The Hyena is out in November.
Jake Arnott is the author of nine novels. His critically acclaimed and bestselling debut The Long Firm was adapted as a BAFTA award-winning BBC TV series. He has since published He Kills Coppers (which was made into a widely praised ITV1 drama), Johnny Come Home, The Devil’s Paintbrush, The House of Rumour, The Fatal Tree and Blood Rival.
Jake’s new novel Netherwood is a sensuous and unsettling modern gothic folk horror about a young couple who move to the town of Hastings and find themselves living in the former home of a notorious local occultist.
Children's Laureate and Hastings Book Festival Patron Patrice Lawrence will be rounding off our Local Heroes day. Patrice will be talking about how she started writing, creating books to inspire and enthrall children and young adults, and what the next two years as Children's Laureate might bring.
You can book tickets and the well priced day-pass by visiting www.hastingsbookfest.org/our-events
1. Sam Davey
Sam Davey Photo: supplied
2. Patrice Lawrence
Patrice Lawrence Photo: supplied
3. Michael Smith
Michael Smith Photo: supplied