Saturday 19th July
3 pm. Big Tent. £10
DAN DICKSON.
The iconic author of Dispatches from the E Zone and The Curious and the Damned reads from his new novel Otherworld and discusses the challenge of creating a convincing futuristic dystopia.
Sunday 20th July
3 pm. Big Tent. £10
The Sentinel Keynote Talk
BRYCE PEABODY.
CELEBRITY AND HYPOCRISY.
The legendary literary critic launches The Poisoned Pen, a new collection of his dazzling reviews. He reflects on our obsession with celebrity and considers how ill-founded these public myths often are.
3 pm. School Room. £10
VIRGINIA WESTCOTT
The author of Entente Cordiale, A Fine Imagined Thing and The Useless Boyfriends Club reads from her latest novel, Sickle Moon Rises, and discusses the role of romance in contemporary fiction.
3 pm. Small Tent. £10
FRANCIS MEADOWES.
THE AMATEUR SLEUTH.
The creator of the acclaimed George Braithwaite series of crime novels considers the history of the amateur detective in crime fiction, from early beginnings in The Thousand and One Nights to TV’s Jonathan Creek and Jackson Brodie.
Monday 21st July
2 pm. Big Tent. £10
FAMILY MAN
Everyone’s favourite countryman and smallholder, Jonty Smallbone, talks frankly about the ups and downs of life on Peewit Farm, the joys and challenges of bringing up three kids in a rural setting, and the problems he faced as he researched and wrote his latest book, Wild Stuff.
6 pm. Middle Tent. £10
TO HELMAND AND BACK
Ex-Royal Marines officer Marvin Blake discusses the experiences that lie behind his extraordinary memoir of a life in combat, culminating in his being seriously wounded in a firefight with the Taliban in Afghanistan. He is joined by ghostwriter Anna Copeland, in an unusually frank discussion of how his real-life adventures were brought to the page.