FERGAL Keane, Michael Longley, Darina Allen, Polly Devlin, and Malachi O’Doherty are just some of the writers taking part in this year's Aspects Irish Literature Festival.
The Bangor festival, now in its 28th year is Northern Ireland’s longest running literature festival. This year’s programme features over 40 events celebrating historical writing, poetry, crime fiction, writing workshops, children’s events, politics, memoir, journalism, scriptwriting, short stories and exhibitions.
The festival kicks off with a number of children’s events on September 20 and 21, designed to inspire young imaginations. Young Aspects events include comic book creation, poetry collage making, book-inspired yoga, toddler storytime and a digital story mash-up with digital artist Graham Ginty.
Award-winning illustrator Barry Falls will host a special illustration workshop for seven-to-12 year olds in Bangor’s Carnegie Library where he will also be holding his This World Is Magic exhibition.
The main Aspects programme will commence on Thursday September 26 with poet Michael Longley at Bangor Castle. He will be reading from his latest publication A Stream’s Tattle, a pamphlet of new poems which celebrate his 80th year.
Catriona King, Sharon Dempsey and Kelly Creighton take part in a special Female Crime event at North Down Museum on October 2, whilst the line-up also showcases local talent with Moyra Donaldson, Ian Sansom, Colin Bateman and Ross Thompson.
The doyenne of Irish cookery, Darina Allen, will be launching her new book at Clandeboye on October 5 at a weekend of food-themed events in the beautiful estate courtyard. Food for Thought will feature Lightning Talks on research and writing about food and drink from the Clandeboye Reading Party – a partnership project between the festival, Queen's University, Trinity College Dublin and Clandeboye Estate.
The weekend programme includes a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party with Lady Dufferin, Woodland Chew and Yarn forest school family event and a talk from Shane Connolly, official florist for the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William.
:: Aspects Literature Festival takes place from September 20 to October 6. For full programme and to book tickets visit Aspectsfestival.com
