The Festival of Words is a consortium of three organisations – Farnham Maltings, Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in Maidenhead and Lewes Live Literature festival – who got together in early 2005 to devise and plan a festival for young people around reading and writing.

As individual organisations it was difficult to find the time and resources required to mount a major festival, but by pooling our energy, expertise and creativity, we were able to draw together an ambitious plan.

After a period of research and development, the ideas were turned into concrete plans and thanks to funding from Arts Council England South East, the first Festival of Words took place at the Farnham Maltings in June 2007.

Song-writing and film-making projects were run by artists in schools in the lead up to the festival, with the resulting products showcased on the first day. In addition, all local schools were sent an activity pack to use to inspire contributions to an exhibition which will be held in September.

Festival activities included workshops in comic strip writing, animating stories and rapping, and there were activities throughout the town, including displays of text based art in a series of shop windows, called Word on the Street.

Next stop for the Festival is Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in Maidenhead, Berkshire. There will be activities in schools in the lead up to the Festival, which takes place at the Centre over three days at the end of June 2008.

In June 2009, it will be hosted by Lewes Live Literature in Sussex.

If you would like to take part, join our email list and you will receive more details as the Festival plans develop.

More information about each organisation can be found at:

www.farnhammaltings.com
www.nordenfarm.org
www.leweslivelit.com

Please check back here again in January 2008 for full details of the 2008 festival.