EAT, DRINK, RUN.

JERSEY OPERA HOUSE / FRIDAY 28 SEPTEMBER / 18.00 / £10

The new hilarious and inspirational memoir from Sunday Times no 1 bestselling author Bryony Gordon.

Bryony Gordon was not a runner. A loafer, a dawdler, a drinker, a smoker, yes. A runner, no. Yet somehow, as she began to recover from the emotional rollercoaster of laying her life bare in her mental health memoir Mad Girl, she started to realise that getting outside, moving her body and talking to others for whom life was also an occasional challenge, might actually help her. As she began to run further she started to see the limitations she had imposed on her life more clearly.

In April 2017, less than a year after she had weighed herself at over 16 stone but stepped off the scales and started training anyway, Bryony Gordon ran all 26 and 3/4 miles of the London Marathon. In her new, typically funny and hugely inspiring memoir, she shows us how extraordinary things can happen to us all, no matter what life throws at us, if we’re just willing to keep going.

In the 18 years that she has worked for the Telegraph, Bryony Gordon has become one of the paper’s best-loved writers and her columns on mental illness are receiving a phenomenally positive response from readers. She has over 42k followers on Twitter and is the founder of Mental Health Mates. Bryony is the author of the bestselling The Wrong Knickers plus The Sunday Times Number One bestseller Mad Girl which was nominated for a British Book Award. Her weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph has won her an army of fans who have followed her journey from single girl about town to – finally! – settled mum. Bryony is now 37 and lives in Nappy Valley (Clapham) with her daughter Edie and her husband, a financial journalist. The last sentence is one she never thought she would see written down on paper.

Bryony Gordon will be in conversation with author of Running Like a Girl Alexandra Heminsley.

THE SOBER DIARIES

JERSEY OPERA HOUSE / SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 14.00 / £8

The Sober Diaries is a brave, honest and at times hilarious account of how one woman gave up drinking and started living.

After partying hard through university – this was the era of the “ladette” and Bridget Jones, when an entire generation of women learned to drink far harder than their mothers and grandmothers ever had – Clare Pooley went into advertising where she found herself part of another drink-fuelled culture. She embraced it and was highly successful; she become managing partner of one of the biggest ad agencies in the world. But when Clare gave up work to concentrate on being a mum she continued to drink. She used alcohol – at least a bottle of wine a day – to escape boredom and tiredness. Other parents of young children all seemed to be doing the same thing, but she was drinking alone. She became overweight, depressed and worried about the effect it was having.

In March 2015 Clare quit drinking and – in an effort to find support without revealing her identity – she started a blog called Mummy was a Secret Drinker under the pseudonym ‘Sober Mummy’. The blog found an almost instant worldwide following; thousands of women who, like Clare, knew alcohol was damaging their lives. Within a year the blog hit over a million page views. The group’s members formed a huge but close support network for one another. When Clare was diagnosed with breast cancer members rallied around her. The Sober Diaries is the personal and frank story of Clare’s first year without alcohol and includes research, advice and wisdom acquired during a year of successfully living sober. It is upbeat, funny and – above all – about trying to live life to the full.

Clare Pooley will be in conversation with Festival Vice-Chairman and writer Paul Bisson.

THE ART OF BEING BRILLIANT

JERSEY OPERA HOUSE / SATURDAY 29th SEPTEMBER / 12.00 / £8

Too many people are simply ground down by the relentless pace of life, feeling great sporadically but with an eye on the weekend or a holiday, trapped in a wishing-their-life-away sleepwalk.

‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ aims to get you to feel brilliant more often, focusing on learning new habits of thinking and behaviour that will sustain personal ‘brilliance’. Life’s too precious to be sleepwalking through it. This is a wake-up call!

Andrew Cope has been studying the science of positive psychology since 2005, culminating in a Loughborough University PhD. He is also a best-selling author in the areas of happiness, leadership and personal development, and has delivered ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ to rave reviews all around the world.

THE READING CURE

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE / SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER / 16.30

A luminous memoir about recovery and how one woman discovered an appetite for food and life through reading.

At the age of fourteen, Laura Freeman was diagnosed with anorexia. She had seized the one aspect of her life that she seemed able to control and struck different foods from her diet one by one until she was starving. But even at her lowest point, the one appetite she never lost was her love of reading. This is not a book about an eating disorder; it is about recovery and what happens afterwards: ‘the pouring in of sunlight after more than a decade of darkness and hunger’.

As Laura battled her anorexia, she gradually re-discovered how to enjoy food – and life more broadly – through literature. Plum puddings and pottles of fruit in Dickens gave her courage to try new dishes; the wounded Robert Graves’ appreciation of a pair of greengages changed the way she thought about plenty and choice; Virginia Woolf’s painterly descriptions of bread, blackberries and biscuits were infinitely tempting. Book by book, meal by meal, Laura developed an appetite and discovered an entire library of reasons to live. The Reading Cure is a beautiful, inspiring account of hunger and happiness, about addiction, obsession and recovery, and about the way literature and food can restore appetite and renew hope.

Laura Freeman is a freelance writer and critic and writes for the Spectator, The Times, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, TLS, Evening Standard, Slightly Foxed and Standpoint. She was shortlisted for Features Writer of the Year at the 2014 British Press Awards. She read history of art at Cambridge, graduating with a double first in 2010. The Reading Cure is her first book.

Laura Freeman will be in conversation with acclaimed writer Cathy Rentzenbrink.

THE GARDEN, OUR OASIS: THE BUMBLEBEE FLIES ANYWAY – A YEAR OF GARDENING AND (WILD)LIFE

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE / SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER / 12.30

Is there any point in gardening for wildlife when everyone else is drowning the land in poison and cement?

If the dead could return, what would they say about the land we have taken, the ancient routes we have carved up, the wildlife we have lost?

In The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, Kate Bradbury documents transforming her decked, barren backyard in Brighton into a beautiful wildlife garden: the unbuttoning of the earth and the rebirth of the garden, the rewilding of a tiny urban space. She erects bird boxes and bee hotels, hangs feeders and grows nectar- and pollen-rich plants, and slowly brings life back to the garden.

But while she’s doing this, Kate’s neighbours continue to pave and deck their gardens locking them away, the wildlife she tries to save is further threatened, and she feels she’s fighting an uphill battle.

Kate finds herself back home in Birmingham where she grew up, travelling the roads she used to race down on her bike in the eighties, thinking of the gardens and wildlife she loved, witnessing more land lost beneath paving stones.

Kate Bradbury is the wildlife editor on BBC Gardeners’ World magazine, and a freelance writer for the Guardian, BBC Wildlife magazine, and Telegraph Gardening. She is a regular contributor to BBC Gardeners’ Question Time and appears in the gardenersworld.com/no-fuss-guides videos. Her book The Wildlife Gardener was the Environmental Award winner at the Garden Media Guild Awards in 2013. Kate is a Butterfly Conservation Ambassador and A Focus on Nature mentor.

Kate Bradbury will be joined by Tor Udall author of A Thousand Paper Birds and Lalage Snow author of War Gardens to discuss gardens as oases in a panel chaired by writer and blogger Naomi Frisby.

READING BETWEEN THE LINES: WHAT YOUR HANDWRITING SAYS ABOUT YOU

JERSEY LIBRARY / SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 16.00 – 17.00

Join Emma Bache at Jersey Library to discover what your handwriting reveals about you.

Are you creative, with a strong imagination? Or easily distracted and oversensitive? Do you have a strong physical and sexual drive? Are you – secretly – far less confident than you appear? How well do you work as part of a team? How suited are you, really, to your partner? Who is the office sociopath? The answer to all these questions and many more can be revealed by your handwriting.

Handwriting is something of a dying art nowadays, as we tap messages to each other day after day. But every aspect of penmanship – the height of an ‘h’, the curliness of a ‘g’, the pressure of the pen on the paper – is a collection of involuntary signals. The way we write can tell the world a huge amount; sometimes more than the things we write about.

The UK’s leading handwriting expert, Emma Bache has worked as a graphologist since 1989, analysing handwriting in both the Corporate and private sectors. With additional qualifications in Psychotherapy and Hypnotherapy, Emma has helped to solve cases of fraud for both private individuals and the corporate world, giving a valuable insight into the criminal mind. She has had her own columns in The Times and the Financial Times and has written for other major publications such as the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian and Cosmopolitan. She has made frequent TV and Radio appearances, including GMTV’s This Morning, BBC’s History Hunter and Radio 4’s Today Programme.

Free admission though booking essential via Eventbrite:

THE GARDEN, OUR OASIS: WAR GARDENS: A JOURNEY THROUGH CONFLICT IN SEARCH OF CALM

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE / SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER / 12.30

Working in the world’s most dangerous war zones, freelance war correspondent and photographer Lalage Snow has often chanced across a very moving sight, a testimony to the triumph of the human spirit in adversity, a celebration of hope and beauty: a war garden. In Kabul, the royal gardens are tended by a centenarian gardener, though the king is long gone; in Camp Bastion, bored soldiers improvise tiny gardens to give themselves a moment’s peace; on both sides of the dividing line in Jerusalem families tend groves of olives and raise beautiful plants from the unforgiving, disputed landscape; in Ukraine, families tend their gardens in the middle of a surreal, frozen war.

War Gardens is a surprising, tragic and beautiful journey through the darkest places of the modern world, revealing the ways people make time and space for themselves and for nature even in the middle of destruction.

Award winning photographer, filmmaker and writer Lalage Snow has covered conflict and unrest since 2007 after finishing a Masters degree with Distinction in photojournalism at London College of Communication. Her personal projects have been published and exhibited to critical acclaim around the world and have been featured on Channel 4, BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera. She has also given a number of public talks at literary festivals, museums and academic institutions including MIT. A series of short films made in Afghanistan are currently on display at the Smithsonian.

Lalage Snow will be joined by Tor Udall author of A Thousand Paper Birds and Kate Bradbury author of The Bumblebee Flies Anyway to discuss gardens as oases in a panel chaired by blogger Naomi Frisby.

THE QUANTUM ASTROLOGER’S HANDBOOK

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE / SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 15.00

The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook is a science book with the panache of a novel, for readers of Carlo Rovelli or Umberto Eco. It is a work of and about genius.

This is a landmark in science writing. It resurrects from the vaults of neglect the polymath Jerome Cardano, a Milanese of the sixteenth century. A gambler and blasphemer, inventor and chancer, plagued by demons and anxieties, astrologer to kings, emperors and popes. This stubborn and unworldly man was the son of a lawyer and a brothel keeper, but also a gifted physician and the unacknowledged discoverer of the mathematical foundations of quantum physics. That is the argument of this charming and intoxicatingly clever book, which is truly original in its style, and in the manner of the modernists embodies in its very form its theories about the world.

‘Michael Brooks is the canniest science writer around. He writes, above all, with attitude.’ The Independent

‘Brooks is an exemplary science writer. His explanations have the sort of clarity you often yearn for when you read about science, but rarely find.’ The Telegraph

Michael Brooks, who holds a PhD in quantum physics, is an author, journalist and broadcaster. He is a consultant at New Scientist, and writes weekly for the New Statesman. He is the author of At The Edge of Uncertainty, The Secret Anarchy of Science and the bestselling non-fiction title 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer, THE, Philadelphia Inquirer and many magazines. He has lectured at, amongst others, NYU, the American Museum of Natural History, and the University of Cambridge.

Event sponsored by Pizza Projekt

HITLER’S BRITISH ISLES

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE / SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 13.00

True-life recollections from the Channel Islanders who were the only British subjects to live under Nazi rule in WWII.

Duncan Barrett spent three months in the Channel Islands researching Hitler’s British Isles, which tells the story of life under Nazi occupation and is based on interviews with over one hundred Islanders.

The people of Guernsey, Jersey and Sark got to know the enemy as those on the mainland never could, watching in horror as their towns and villages were suddenly draped in Swastika flags, their cinemas began showing Nazi propaganda films, and Wehrmacht soldiers goose-stepped down their highstreets.

Those who resisted the regime, such as the brave men and women who set up underground newspapers or sheltered slave labourers, encountered the full force of Nazi brutality. But in the main, the Channel Islands occupation was a ‘model’ one, a prototype for how the Fuhrer planned to run mainland Britain. As a result, the stories of the islanders are not all misery and terror. Many, in fact are rather funny – tales of plucky individuals trying to get by in almost impossible circumstances, and keeping their spirits up however they could.

‘An absolutely fascinating account of life under German rule in the Channel Islands during the war. As a Guernsey girl I grew up with these stories and recognise family and friends in these pages. Duncan Barrett has done a brilliant job of reflecting the peculiar challenges that existed for those living under occupation.’ Sarah Montague, The Today Programme presenter.

Duncan Barrett studied English at Cambridge University and now works as a writer and editor, specialising in biography and memoir. He is also the author of The Sugar Girls, GI Brides, and The Girls Who Went To War.

Duncan Barrett will also present a memoir-writing workshop at Jersey Arts Centre 11.00 – 13.00 Sunday 30 September.

LEAP IN

THE LIDO, HAVRE DES PAS / SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 13.00 – 15.00 / £10

Join us at Jersey’s iconic Art Deco pier and sea lido at Havre des Pas for an afternoon of swimming-inspired books.

Swimming is one of the fastest growing sports in the country: 2.7 million people in the UK swim once a week. And Alexandra Heminsley thought she could swim. She really did. It may have been because she could run. It may have been because she wanted to swim; or perhaps because she only ever did ten minutes of breaststroke at a time. But, as she learned one day while flailing around in the sea, she really couldn’t.

Believing that a life lived fully isn’t one with the most money earned, the most stuff bought or the most races won, but one with the most experiences, experienced at the fullest, she decided to conquer her fear of wild swimming. From the ignominy of getting into a wetsuit to the triumph of swimming to Ithaca, Alexandra learned to appreciate her body and still her mind. As it turns out, the water is never as frightening once you’re in, and really, everything is better when you remember to exhale.

Candid, insightful, and empowering, Leap In will move you – to tears of laughter and to the water!

‘Soaringly beautiful book about swimming’ India Knight, Sunday Times

Alexandra Heminsley is a journalist, broadcaster and ghostwriter. She is the author of the bestselling memoir Running Like a Girl, which has now been published in thirteen countries.

Alexandra Heminsley will be joined by author of The Lido Libby Page in this swimming-themed event chaired by acclaimed writer Cathy Rentzenbrink.

Event sponsored by Le Gallais Self Storage

CLUB SOULGENIC / SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 14.00 + 16.00 / £25 (for PMA workout to include Nude Food power ball and smoothie)

Join us at Club Soulgenic to discover The PMA Method.

“The PMA Method is so much more than a fitness book. I want to teach people to never settle for feeling average and to keep striving to be the best version of themselves.”

Faisal Abdalla, aka ‘Mr PMA’, is a Nike master trainer, a master trainer at Barry’s Bootcamp and Ellie Goulding’s personal trainer. He believes that there are three golden rules to looking and feeling great: nutrition, fitness and, most importantly, a Positive Mental Attitude.

‘The more I started doing classes and also working out with my trainer, Faisal Abdalla, the better I felt about myself’. Ellie Goulding

Faisal’s PMA Method is about working hard to achieve the body you want through a positive mindset; it is about understanding how the smallest of steps can have huge results.

Featuring structured exercise routines for the body and mind as well as delicious and healthy recipes, including easy-to-make vegetarian options, The PMA Method is a comprehensive guide to achieving physical and mental health. From a hearty breakfast of Kicking Scrambled Eggs, to a post-workout lunch of Itsa Pizza Pitta, to a dinner of deliciously nutritious Thai Burgers, Faisal’s programme is all about enjoying good food as much as achieving fitness goals. Filled with tasty, ‘fakeaway’ recipes, this is a method that helps you achieve sustainable changes without leaving you feeling deprived of tasty food.

Faisal’s 14-day fitness method focuses on a combination of HIIT and strength training, meaning the focus isn’t just on fat burn but on sculpting a strong, functional and toned body that is maintainable beyond completion of the book.

Join Faisal for a unique PMA work-out at Club Soulgenic at 14.00 and 16.00 – contact Club Soulgenic on 01534 733080 or info@clubsoulgenic.co.uk to book

KHAZANA: A TREASURE TROVE OF INDO-PERSIAN RECIPES INSPIRED BY THE MUGHALS

JERSEY OPERA HOUSE / SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 16.00

From the winner of MasterChef 2017 Saliha Mahmood Ahmed comes the next chapter in our love affair with the food of the Indian sub-continent.

Steeped in Persian flavours, Khazana, which means treasure trove, is a cookbook that promises to be the next step in our on-going love affair with the Indian sub-continent, introducing recipes like Smokey Chicken and Basil Kebabs with Buttermilk Riata, Moghul Fish Korma with Almond Rice and Sandalwood Ice Cream with Toasted Almond Brittle.

Author Saliha Mahmood Ahmed, who won over the MasterChef judges with her fusion of Indo-Persian food, has written a book that will delight. Steeped in the rich culinary heritage of the region and Saliha’s own travels in modern day India and Pakistan, the recipes are bang up-to-date and will inspire 21st century food lovers.

After facing off competition from 63 other determined contestants, through seven gruelling weeks of culinary challenges and an exhilarating final cook-off, Saliha became the thirteenth amateur cook to lift the MasterChef trophy in 2017. She is also a junior doctor working in the NHS, training to specialise in Gastroenterology, married to fellow doctor Usman and mum of one boy. In the future, she hopes to combine her work as a doctor with her passion for gastronomy to help drive the country towards healthier meals and work on national campaigns to tackle obesity, particularly in children.

Saliha Ahmed will be in conversation with BBC Radio Jersey presenter Carrie Cooper.

WHAT MAKES ME A ME?

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE / SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER / 10.30 / £6.50

What makes me a me?

What makes you a you?

Are you like a sports car – lightning fast?

Or maybe you’re like a tree… Do your arms stick out like branches?

No? Then perhaps you’re like a snail – very slow (especially when it’s time for school!)

A funny and thought-provoking look at what makes us us. Guaranteed to feed the imagination, this celebration of being who we are is perfect for inquisitive (and inventive!) little minds.

Ben Faulks is an actor and writer from Cornwall, best known for his role as Mr Bloom in the CBeebies children’s television show Mr Bloom’s Nursery. He was nominated for a BAFTA award for best Children’s Television Presenter in 2011 and the show won an RTS North And West award for best children’s programme in 2011. He lives in Heptonstall, Yorkshire.

Event sponsored by Every Child Our Future

THE JERSEY SONG PROJECT

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE / WEDNESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER / 19.30

The Jersey Song Project, a groundbreaking collaboration between the Jersey Festival of Words and Jèrriais expert and musician Kit Ashton, aims to use the power of song to keep the threatened Norman-French dialect of Jèrriais alive. Over the next two months local musicians and Jèrriais speakers will be encouraged to get together to create new songs that will be performed at this, the opening event of the Jersey Festival of Words 2018. The brief is simple: songs can be on any theme and in any genre or language but must include at least one word of Jèrriais. Given the high quality of musicianship on Jersey the results are bound to be spectacular, so get ready for a unique evening of entertainment, music and song.

Further information on Jèrriais can be found at http://www.jerriais.org.je/

Kit Ashton is a musician, film-maker and producer currently based in Jersey and London. He is the lead singer and founder of Jèrriais pop folk band/ applied ethnomusicology project Badlabecques.

‘COLLUSION’

JERSEY OPERA HOUSE / SATURDAY 29th SEPT / 18.00

BLOGGING

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE MARIA RITCHIE ROOM/ SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 10.45

‘Blogging my way out of the madness and into a flexible career…’

Learn why Emma started blogging as a form of therapy, and why she thought it was a good idea to share her fears, secrets, and embarrassing memories with the whole of the internet. Emma talks about the power of blogging and how you too could be blogging your way towards a new career.

Emma Critchley is a former teacher who swapped life at the chalkface for life as a stay-at-home mum. Her dreams of becoming a Stepford Wife/Perfect Pinterest Mum were soon abandoned when she realised that she had somehow lost herself between the mountains of ironing and the never-ending cleaning up of glitter. Emma started blogging to save her braincells, somehow won an award (Fresh Voice – BritMums Brilliance in Blogging 2016) and now works as a freelance writer.

Emma Critchley blogs at: islandliving365.com

HOW TO SURVIVE IN TEACHING WITHOUT IMPLODING, EXPLODING OR WALKING AWAY

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE / SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 20.30

Recent statistics show that not enough teachers are entering the profession and that too many are leaving. Teaching is facing a genuine crisis. But why is this? In her thought-provoking book, experienced teacher and leader Dr Emma Kell examines workplace stress and anxiety, conflict and ‘toxic politics’, and the other factors which lead teachers to ultimately decide to walk away.

‘This book is a love song, a battle cry, a lament for the profession to which I have dedicated almost half of my life so far, and to which I plan to dedicate myself for as long as I possibly can… Everybody needs teachers. Teachers who are wrung-out and bitter are no good to us. Teachers who are thriving do a better job than those who are exhausted, disillusioned and running on empty. Teaching is a wonderful job. Truly it is. I cannot imagine another profession in which I would laugh so much, feel triumph and disappointment so intensely, and have such a deeply ingrained sense of having a very real chance to make a difference, to make a mark on the future. But, at the moment, there is something very, very wrong with teaching in the UK. Teachers are leaving in their droves.’

Emma firmly believes there are ways to survive the increasing pressure teachers are under. This book offers a realistic, unflinching and positive perspective on the challenges and rewards of teaching.

Dr Emma Kell has 20 years’ experience as a teacher and is Head of English with senior leadership experience at a school in North London. She is also a former Head of MFL. She has written several articles and blog posts on school leadership and the pressures of teaching including through her blog and via Twitter @thosethatcan. She has recently completed a doctorate on teacher well-being and work-life balance at Middlesex University.

Dr Emma Kell will be in conversation with writer and teacher Simon MacDonald.

Event kindly sponsored by NASUWT

JERSEY LIBRARY / THURSDAY 27th SEPTEMBER / 15.00 – 16.00 / FREE

Heather Morton is the author of a new book, scheduled for publication later this year, that tells the story of German soldiers and sailors imprisoned in Jersey. We are familiar with German rule during the Occupation, but this part of Jersey’s role in the First World War is less well known. There are other stories too, of prisoners, escapes, military funerals and living on the sand dunes – behind barbed wire. Even earlier Neolithic families squeeze into the picture.

Free admission; booking essential.

MINDFULNESS FOR WELLBEING 

JERSEY LIBRARY / THURSDAY 27 SEPTEMBER / 17.30 – 18.30 / FREE

Local author, founder and CEO of Soulgenic, Glenda Rivoallan, will introduce her new book and look at how we could all benefit from taking a mindful approach to life. 

Free admission, booking essential via Eventbrite (below).

JERSEY LIBRARY / THURSDAY 27 SEPTEMBER / 08.00 – 09.30 (talk) and 15.00-16.30 (workshop) / FREE

Drawing on his own journey of becoming an executive coach, with 19 years of experience in learning how to self-reflect and take action, Mark has recently published Coach Yourself First – A Coach’s Guide to Self-Reflection.

Mark will share learnings from his journey of self-reflection and enable you to learn experientially using a variety of creative self-reflection approaches. You will leave this powerful event knowing: three creative ways to use self-reflection to develop new self-awareness; where you want to be regarding purpose, enjoyment, achievement and learning in your life; and how to continue your journey of self-reflection.

Free admission, booking essential via Eventbrite (below).

08.00 TALK:

15.00 WORKSHOP:

Paul Darroch

WHITE STAR, BLUE ICEBERG: JERSEY SEA STORIES

JERSEY ARTS CENTRE MARIA RITCHIE ROOM/ SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER / 14.30

The story of Jersey is shaped by its encircling sea. Paul Darroch, author of Jersey: The Hidden Histories, will be bringing our compelling maritime history to life in an exclusive reading from his forthcoming book.

He tells of the turbulent waters that swept away the doomed manor of La Brecquette, and drowned the flower of English royalty in the White Ship. He also recounts the astonishing story of Miss Louisa Journeaux, whose Sunday night rowing escapade in St Helier’s harbour ended far across the ocean in Canada.

Jersey mariners occupied a ring-side seat at some of the defining events of maritime history; captaining the Cutty Sark, commanding the clash of arms at Jutland; and entering the bridge of RMS Titanic at the fatal moment of impact with the blue iceberg on April 14, 1912.

This is the story of an Island forged by the seas, set at the crossroads of maritime history, and told through the stories of the Jersey seafarers who made it.

FINISSAGE WITH RUPERT THOMSON / CCA GALLERIES / SAT 29th SEPT / 19.15-20.45

Finissage with author Rupert Thomson and photographic archivist Gareth Syvret. Rupert’s novel Never Anyone But You tells the story of the love affair between Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, two revolutionary French female artists. Following his talk at the Jersey Festival of Words, Rupert will be signing copies of his book amongst the work of Claude Cahun and Clare Rae and musing on the literary and visual language Cahun’s work has provoked

Finissage with author Rupert Thomson and photographic archivist Gareth Syvret. Rupert’s novel Never Anyone But You tells the story of the love affair between Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, two revolutionary French female artists. Following his talk at the Jersey Festival of Words, Rupert will be signing copies of his book amongst the work of Claude Cahun and Clare Rae and musing on the literary and visual language Cahun’s work has provoked.

http://www.ccagalleriesinternational.com/events.html

Strolling With Scribes

WALK / SUNDAY 30th SEPTEMBER / 14.30 – 15.00 (Meet in Royal Square)

As part of the 2018 Jersey Festival of Words Tom Bunting and his daughter Caro will be giving a literary guided walk around the streets of St Helier. Hear about the local writers that have made an impression on the world at large and the literary giants that have visited the Island. We’ll end up with a quiet drink reading some letters from a rather unexpected visitor.