In the summer, we heard the exciting news that a book festival would take place in Falmouth. As many of you know, we have stocked a variety of book genres from Cornish authors in the gallery shop, so we were keen to be involved.
The Writers Collective has office space within our studios, and they were also keen to jump on the tails of the festival to highlight the talent of our local authors. The Collective has been trying to run a series of talks from our event space since 2019. However, COVID has called a halt to their plans on two occasions. So together, we hatched a plan to run a fringe event ad maximise our publicity potential.
The Penryn Fringe Book Festival went ahead on the 16th & 17th of October and was a resounding success. The theme of the first day was children's books, non-fiction and short story. Des Hannigan (The Long Deep and The Almost Island), Scott Jones (Secret Of The Dark Woods, and The Curse of Kaninjanga Island), Eve Bourrat (Seb and Polly Planet on their Ocean Quest), Sue Kittow (various successful walking inspired books of Cornwall) and Tracee Dockree and contributors (Cornwall: Misfits, Curiosities and Legends), joined us for a full day of thirty-minute talks and book signings on Saturday 16th.
On Sunday the 17th, the theme of the day was fiction and contemporary, romance, thriller and horror writers Claire Duende (The Fortunicity of Birdie Dalal), Lamorna Ireland (Unexpected Beginnings and Unexpected Truths), J C Berry (The Flesh Auction), Jane Cable (The Cheesemaker's House, The Faerie Tree, Another You and Endless Skies), Kim Sancreed (Mentoring Mr Singleman) and Rich Hockin (Have you seen Joe) all delighted us all with a personal insight into publishing and their inspiration for their books.
Despite the exhaustive organisation, the fringe festival was a fantastic weekend, bringing in a few more sales for the authors and undoubtedly elevating their social media profiles. We hope to work with The Writers Collective again to organise similar events in the future.
All the books for the authors mentioned in this blog are available in the gallery in our online bookshop, and if you live within a 20-mile radius of the gallery, you are eligible for FREE local delivery...