13th, 14th & 15th September 2013
Welcome to booQfest - Northampton's LGBT Literary Festival.
Taking place at The Royal & Derngate Theatres, the festival celebrates a Queer perspective of the written and spoken word. For a whole weekend, (13th,14th & 15th September) Northampton town centre will be buzzing with the booQfest bug!
Our schedule is organic and developing by the day, so don't forget to return to see how it has grown. We'll be announcing schedule details soon. So far, we're pleased to announce the following appearances and themes:
2013 Highlights
We have some of our favourite 2012 authors returning to Northampton (because they loved it so much the first time!) We're pleased to invite back V G Lee (Always You, Edina), Joseph Lidster (Wizards vs Aliens, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood) and Gary Russell (Doctor Who, Torchwood). This year, one of the themes explored by booQfest is performance of the written word. In fact, to open the festival, critically-acclaimed writer Rose Collis will be performing her original cabaret-style musical show 'Trouser-Wearing Characters'. V G Lee will be here to help us explore how play writing is contributing to the Queer conversation by treating us to an excerpt from her one-woman play The Lady of the Wild West Hill which she performed at Brighton Fringe in May. She will also take part in a panel discussion with other playwrights including Ben Wetherill (contributor to The Gay Stage) and Mark O'Connell (Love For Sale).
Riding on the success of writing for the fabulous CBBC series Wizards vs Aliens, Mr Lidster will join Mr Russell with other authors including Lesley Davis to discuss the mysteries behind their specialist genre - Fanstasy! Speaking of fantasy, we are very excited about having our first graphic novelist attend booQfest - Martin Eden. He will be creating gay, lesbian and trans superheroes just for you! And Crin Claxton will be around on Sunday 15th to talk about hir latest ghost whispering book The Supernatural Detective.
Some of the solo author appearance so far include Paul Burston (The Gay Divorcee) coming to talk about his work and this years Polari First Book Prize, and gay soldier James Wharton will read from his latest book and chat about what it is like to be gay in the army.
Add to that more solo author book readings, Q&A sessions, book signings, workshops some scented Storytelling from the fabulous Alex Ultradish, and it's already looking to be a great weekend - and all completely FREE!
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