Upcoming Literary Events For Your Diary
Whether you want to learn how to hone your writing craft into a well-oiled machine, or you want to hear from successful authors about their new books, Exeter Writers has you covered for the coming month.
One positive thing about the current pandemic is, with the technology available to us and our human ingenuity, events of all kinds are popping up online. Conferences that might have been over budget or simply out of reach because of distance are more easily available than ever before.
Here are a few events coming up in April 2021 that may be of interest to you:
The Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival
24 April - 2 May
The theme for this year is: The Challenge of Our Times. They will have over 50 panels, debates and interviews with writers and professionals to discuss the subject. If that’s something that interests you the full programme is now available.
Cambridge Literary Festival Online (£35-£50 Festival Pass)
21 - 25 April
There are a host of writers and poets discussing their books, and topical issues of interest.
The Gathering of the Creatives Online ($249 Full Access Pass)
16 - 18 April
GOTC is back this April and I highly recommend this conference. Check out the Exeter Writers Blog Post Highlights from the Gathering of The Creatives Conference, Santa Fe, 2020 for more information on what to expect. It's pricey for an online event, but if you're feeling burnt out creatively, then this amazing community of creatives will help get you back on track.
Part of the experience of going to conferences is the connections and friends you make there. GOTC uses a great platform called Whova which makes connecting with other delegates and panelists a breeze.
The Geneva Writers Group
The Geneva Writers’ Group hosts various free and paywalled content and workshops for writers of both fiction and non-fiction.
The Non-Fiction Workshop: Unearthing Our Stories, Journal Writing on the 17th April will be an interesting look into journaling and unearthing the stories within us.
The Iceland Writers Retreat (Online) ($235 US)
29 April - 1 May
They plan to put on 27 live, interactive workshops, plus Q&A panels to ask the hosts and writers questions, a virtual book club and some fun events to give the feel of an in-person conference from the comfort of your own home.
Manchester Literature Festival (Pay What You Can Scheme)
Manchester Literature Festival is running a few Crowdcast events at the moment. There’s still time to book on to see Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let me Go. He will be talking about his new book Klara and the Sun on Monday 19th.
The Ottawa Writer’s Festival
The Ottawa site streams online literary events, panels and discussions on a variety of topics from authors in contemporary and literary fiction.
Quay Words Events (Free & Ticketed Events)
Our very own local Literature Works funded, Quay Words at Exeter Customs House is continuing to offer free live-streams of events with their Writers-in-Residence as well as workshops on a pay-per-event basis.
Spring Writer-in-Residence, Monique Roffey, who won last year’s Costa Book of the Year, is hosting an intensive writing course at the end of April as well.
Streets of Poetry (Free)
18 April - 16 May
An international event, Dutch and UK based poets have come together with visual artists to create murals in Manchester, UK, and, Moston and Harpurhey, The Netherlands.
Maps will be available nearer the time, but please adhere to government guidelines to check if you can travel to visit them.
WORDFEST (Free)
Based in Calgary, WordFest offers workshops, readings and panel discussions for writers of all ages and genres. This April they have a festival of events that might be of interest to budding writers.
The Writers’ Conference 2021 (£75)
8 - 11 April
This conference has more of an emphasis on the writer's journey and is staying true to the ethos of the kinds of writers' conferences we’ve come to know and love in the UK. There will be panels, workshops and also opportunities to meet agents and editors too.
The full programme is available to browse now.
If you know of any other writing events going on whether locally or globally please let us know in the comments.
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