Martin Parr has captured everything from British seaside holidays to the quirks of everyday life, publishing over 130 photobooks along the way. Now, for the first time, he’s turned the camera on himself.
Writer, campaigner and former Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, will be joined by acclaimed author and academic Michael Malay to explore the politics of nature and climate change, the future of protest, and the rise of populism.
Join Howard Amos, in conversation with Peter Leonard, to discuss Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruins of Empire - a vivid portrait of modern Russia through a study of the Pskov region.
10.30am
JASBINDER BILAN:
A Pinch of Magic; Storytelling for Children
Christ Church, Crypt
Come into the world of spellbinding storytelling with award-winning author,
Jasbinder Bilan. Popular author of ten books, Jasbinder will share her wonderful
secrets, inspirations and writing journey with you.
Kate Humble, one of the UK’s best-loved writers and broadcasters, reflects on her lifelong fascination with our relationship to the natural world and rural life.
Two extraordinary true stories; one unforgettable conversation. Ellen McWilliams and
Lin Rose Clark join Irish historian Dr Erika Hanna to explore the rich and risky territory where
history meets memoir.
Join Sarah Bayliss - nutritional therapist, health strategist, and author of Do Nourish: How to Eat for Resilience - for an inspiring guide to eating and living well in a demanding world.
In her new book, Helen Taylor investigates what it means to be childless by choice. Part memoir, part cultural history, it interweaves personal experience with rigorous analysis to challenge our assumptions about family, fulfilment and female identity.
Setting a goal and reaching it can be a long, sometimes difficult road - but always a
worthwhile one. In this special event, Mary Colwell, writer and conservationist, joins
Caroline Lucas, politician and environmental campaigner, to share the challenges
and rewards of their own journeys.
This workshop is aimed at young people who are considering a career in journalism or who want to better understand how to make their voices heard through various platforms.
In June 1806, Jane Austen fled Bath for Clifton “with what happy feelings of escape.” Bath famously features in two of her novels, but Clifton barely gets a mention - at least at first glance!
Join Caroline Eden for an evocative journey from Armenia through Georgia to the Black Sea, where spectacular landscapes meet a rich culture of hospitality and food.
In Drifting North, Dominic Hinde takes readers - and audiences - on a powerful journey through the Scottish landscape and beyond, shaped by the aftermath of his life-changing road accident.
Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads became a global bestseller by shifting the focus of history from the West to the East. Spanning Central Asia, China, and India, it showed how the movement of goods, people and ideas helped shape the modern world - where once again, the East is rising in importance.
Uzbekistan dazzles visitors with the blue domes of Samarkand and Bukhara, but beyond the postcard image lies a land of contradictions and transformation. In this event, Joanna Lillis, a journalist with over two decades of reporting from Central
Asia, joins fellow expert Peter Leonard to discuss her new book 'Silk Mirage'.
In their new book, The Only Way is Up, Polly Toynbee and David Walker argue that under the Tories, Britain had hit bottom in areas from dentistry and defence to climate action, education, social security, and income growth. A year into Labour’s
government, they ask how much progress has been made.
3pm
TRIG POINT
Poetry by ROSIE JACKSON, BETHANY HANDLEY and VANESSA LAMPERT
Christ Church, Crypt
Three brilliant poets arrive in Clifton from different geographic and poetic directions.
Isabella d’Este, “The First Lady of the Renaissance,” was a trailblazer: the first female art collector and patron, commissioning works from Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, and more. A style icon whose fashion set trends across Italy, her court also attracted writers and poets.
Commissioned by Andy Hay for Bristol Old Vic, ‘Up The Feeder, Down The Mouth’ draws on interviews with over 50 dockers, wives, and seamen to bring the history of Bristol’s docks to life. Shaped from real voices, the play blends documentary material and song, capturing the humour and hardship of working dockside.
Jessica Hepburn will be joining us to talk about the inspiring story of how, in midlife, she went from being an ‘arty’ unlikely athlete to a record-breaking adventurer, transforming her life in the process.
At 2:54am on 12 October 1984, an IRA bomb tore through the Grand Hotel in Brighton, targeting Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet during the Conservative Party Conference. Thatcher survived, but five people were killed and British politics was shaken to its core.
Ru Callender has carried coffins across windswept beaches, placed caskets on beer-stained pub tables, and helped children fire flaming arrows into their father’s funeral pyre - all in pursuit of truly personal farewells.
Ed Drewitt is a naturalist and learning adviser. He is also a peregrine researcher and has been studying urban-dwelling peregrines for over twenty-six years.
In the Anglo-Saxon world ‘death’ is a whisper: a closed realm. But on Achill Island, off the coast of County Mayo, death has a louder voice, in the ancient tradition of the Irish Wake.
Dr Lucy Pollock grew up in Northern Ireland and studied medicine at Cambridge and St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Early in her career, a wise boss gently suggested she consider becoming a geriatrician - advice she’s been grateful for ever since.
Remember the ad showing a ballet dancer with the tagline: ‘Fatima’s next job could be in cyber (she just doesn’t know it yet)’? Its message - forget the arts, tech is what really matters - struck many as chilling, and it was quickly withdrawn. Yet it echoed a widespread belief: that artists are frivolous, dispensable, and the future belongs only to technology.
In these times of uncertainty and darkness, how do we write poems which affirm and transform, making use of what Yeats called ‘the spiritual intellect’?
12noon
BELINDA BAUER
In conversation with Gareth Hoskins
Clifton Library
Belinda Bauer grew up in England and South Africa and now lives in Wales. She worked as a journalist and a screenwriter before finally writing a book to appease her nagging mother.
The Archers has been a regular feature of BBC Radio for over seventy years, and in that time has gained a devoted following - and recently of course, a podcast.
Bristol’s literary scene is thriving - and this event brings two of its finest voices together with Johanna Thomas-Corr, Chief Literary Critic of The Times and The Sunday Times.
For years, discussion about Banksy has been dominated by the “whodunnit” - is he a national treasure, an urban folk hero, or a sell-out who swapped street-cred for credit in the bank? Meanwhile, the art itself often gets lost in the noise.
Clothes tell stories; wardrobes house our memories.
Social historian Carol Dyhouse will talk about her new book, Appearances: Memory, History, Clothes.
In September 1825 British engineers unveiled a technology that transformed the whole world into a golden age of steam.
1.30pm
DEBORAH MOGGACH
Talks to PAULA O’ROURKE on writing about love in later life
Clifton High School, Main School Hall
The joys and indignities of love at a later age are the subjects of several recent books by Deborah Moggach, herself a veteran in the field.
1.30pm
LILY DUNN
MEMOIR AND WRITING THROUGH TIME WORKSHOP
Clifton Library, Meeting Room
Memoir thrives on what Philip Lopate calls the ‘dual perspective’ - the voice of experience in the moment, and the reflective voice of hindsight. This dynamic often involves shifting across time, something memoirist Dr Lily Dunn describes as the ‘memoirisation’ of time.
In Hafren: The wisdom of the River Severn Sarah Siân Chave takes us on a journey from Hafren’s source, following the river’s route from Pumlumon in Wales, meandering through England, before Hafren finds her way back home to Wales
and to the sea.
3pm
FRANNY MOYLE
MEASURING UP TO THE OLD MASTERS 18th century painters Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun and Angelica Kauffman
Clifton High School, Rose Theatre
Celebrated arts biographer Franny Moyle turns the spotlight on two of the 18th century’s most remarkable women: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Angelica Kauffman. Both led exciting, often precarious lives, achieving fame as painters and tastemakers in an era when women’s artistic abilities were routinely dismissed.
3pm
HOW TO GET PUBLISHED
Finding Your Voice - and Audience - in the Digital Age
Sixth Form Centre
If you’ve got something to say, how do you find the right space - and get paid for it? Fiona Beckett and Janet Wilkinson share their journeys from traditional print to digital platforms, showing how experienced writers are adapting in a world where newspapers are shrinking and online publishing is booming.
The re-issue of the original 1979 edition of The Palestinians this autumn is timed to coincide with the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza. With an extended 2025 introduction by the author that updates the story, The Palestinians is about a stateless people who have lived under occupation or in refugee camps in neighbouring states since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
Stephanie Austin writes the best-selling Devon Mysteries, a contemporary crime series set in the Dartmoor town of Ashburton and featuring reluctant antique shop owner and amateur sleuth, Juno Browne.
4.30pm
AMY JEFFS
In Conversation with Dr Erika Hanna
Clifton High School, Main School Hall
Amy Jeffs is a British art historian, medievalist, artist, composer, and acclaimed author whose own illustrations have adorned a number of her books, including the Waterstones Book of the Year nominated Storyland.
Bristol has a growing number of independent bookshops, several of which have been recently celebrated in The Bookseller’s awards. In this session, you will learn about the history and customer base of three of them, and hear their owner/managers’ recommendations for Desert Island reading.
4.30pm
WHY BRISTOL WORKS
Behind the Scenes with TV, Film & Creatives
Clifton High School, Rose Theatre
Join a lively and anecdote-rich conversation with creatives from the world of TV, film, and media as they explore what
makes Bristol such a magnet for talent.
Get ready for a foot-stomping night of music with Los Yanquis, a Bristol band blending Country, Blues and Tex-Mex into irresistible, up-tempo rock’n’roll.
