WordFest launches with bus and books
jpco-13-3-13 Wordfest Launch at Maidenbower Junior School year four students with Author Siobhan Rowden (Pic by Jon Rigby)
The first chapter of this year’s Crawley WORDFest has received rave reviews from those who took part - with plenty more to follow.
The two-week festival was launched at The Hawth on Saturday (March 16) when authors, teachers, musicians and members of the public gathered on the festival bus for an evening poetry, songs and cake.
With Crawley Library due to dedicate next Saturday to a Children and Young Persons Festival, it was appropriate that the bus had spent much of last week visiting schools.
Authors Siobhan Rowden and Jeff Norton dropped in at Maidenbower Junior School for a visit which headteacher Chris Murphy said “genuinely inspired the children”.
He added that the bus had “provided a unique and stimulating environment for the children to develop their creative talents.
“It was lovely to see the children so absorbed and captivated by the activities”
With a busy two weeks ahead of her, organiser Jo Harrison described how WORDFest was born.
She said: “WORDfest came about because of the relationship between Waterstones County Mall and Crawley Library.
“Jamie Harrison -my brother - Waterstones events co-ordinator and Marianne Lindfield on the library community team had worked together on lots of events and thought why shouldn’t Crawley have a literary festival?
“Lots of us who’d worked in the arts and community got together to see how it could work and within 10 weeks we were launching WORDfest 2011!”
She added: “There’s such a great mixture of stuff going on and I know they’ll all be enjoyable and interesting but I love the more community focussed events.
“Open Mic will be great, the quiz and the graphic novel panel, but I am also really looking forward to the children’s day.
“We’ve got great authors visiting and workshops going on, I think the atmosphere is going to be awesome.
“We hope that WORDfest will add to the cultural life of Crawley, showcase local talent and inspire collaborations and creativity.”
For a full list of events, log on to www.wordfestcrawley.org
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Weather for Crawley
Sunday 19 May 2013
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Light rain
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