The Oxford Literary Festival brings together a fantastic range of leading writers each year. This year was no exception, the festival has been filled with inspirational authors and books, stimulating lectures, panels and interviews, as well as some captivating and thought-provoking debates.
It has been a pleasure to see so many familiar faces and meet lots of new ones too, all connected by our shared love of literature.
The ILP team have been attending a wide selection of engaging events over the last week, including ‘The Power of Poetry’ with Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho. In this inspiring session at the wonderful Sheldonian Theatre we learned about poetry, wrote some of our own and performed some of Joseph’s.
The Felicity Bryan Tribute Conversation was a festival highlight for us. Mary Berry was interviewed about her life, work and favourite food by James Naughtie. Both knew and loved Felicity, and their recollection of her skill and style as an agent made this a memorable event.
The ILP team thoroughly enjoyed Louisa Treger being interviewed about her historical novel Mad Woman by Executive Publisher at Bloomsbury Publishing and Founder of Virago Press, Alexandra Pringle. Mad Woman is based on the life of Nellie Bly, the world’s first female investigative journalist.
We also relished an enlightening session with Diane Purkiss, Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, learning about England’s social history through the lens of food; author and historian Tom Holland discussing his book Dominion and the legacy of Christianity with agent Andrew Lownie; and writer and critic Miranda Seymour in conversation with Suzi Feay about her compelling biography of Jean Rhys, author of Wide Sargasso Sea.
It has been an absolute pleasure to be the sponsor of the Oxford Literary Festival Green Room for 2023. We look forward to seeing you all again in 2024!
Photography by KT Bruce
