Published: 19th October 2023
I visited the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Sunday the 15th. It was such a satisfying experience being surrounded by other bookish people. I was able to visit three very different talks, and had such a good time that I wanted to write a blog post on it!
I first made a visit to the Waterstones tent, which was heaving with people buying books and getting them signed by the many writers attending the festival.
The first talk I attended was the discussion between Dr Alex George and psychotherapist Anna Mathur. They spoke about Dr Alex’s book called ‘The Mind Manual’. It was funny and insightful, with many valid points made about Dr Alex’s ‘seven universal truths’ as mentioned in his book. These included ‘mistakes are a must-have’ and ‘happiness is an inside job’. I read his book after the talk, and highly recommend reading it.
The second talk I watched was a hilarious comedy show by Robin Ince. The theme was his book ‘Bibliomaniac: An Obsessive’s Tour of the Bookshops of Britain’, yet he somehow managed to never even tell us what his book was about, for the entire talk. He walked in at the beginning, launched into the talk, and then never stopped. There were tangents within tangents within more tangents, but not in a way that felt unorganised and rambly. He emphasised, through the many tangents, the importance of reading and writing, and this made his love of books so clear and infectious. He had the audience in tears, and by the end of the talk I couldn’t wait to get my hands on his book!
The final talk was themed around the gothic genre, particularly haunted houses in literature. Author Elizabeth Hand and horror expert Roger Luckhurst discussed Elizabeth Hand’s novel ‘A Haunting on the Hill’, which returned to the world of Shirley Jackson’s ‘Hill House’. Elizabeth Hand spoke in detail about the writing process, talking about how she didn’t want it to be a pastiche or a retelling, and she read aloud a very spooky passage of her book, which had the entire audience hooked. I learnt a lot about the gothic genre, and the way it has developed over the years. They made interesting points about how it has reflected reality at different times. For example, there was a rise of haunted house literature during the pandemic as it allowed authors to capture the isolation that many people felt during that time. It was a very thought-provoking talk that made me look differently at the gothic genre.
I had a lovely time at my first ever literature festival, and I feel that the different themes of the talks allowed me to get a broad experience of the festival, even if I was only able to make it to the last day that it was open. I definitely recommend everyone who reads this to attend the festival next year!
Thanks for reading!