Chichester Writing Festival

The 5th Chichester Writing Festival is taking place on
Friday 30 March - Sunday 1 April 2012.

The 5th Chichester Writing Festival will be as exciting, as intriguing and as illuminating as its sold-out predecessors. Running from lunchtime on Friday 30 March to teatime on Sunday 1 April 2012, the Chichester Writing Festival offers an extraordinary opportunity for published and unpublished authors to come together, debate and find out about all aspects of the art, craft and business of writing.

This year, Festival Director Kate Mosse will take a break from the filming of Labyrinth and editing her new novel Citadel to interview three brilliant, contrasting headline authors in AN AUDIENCE WITH ...:

Mark Billingham, author of ten straight Sunday Times bestselling novels, twice Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year, recipient of seven Crime Writers Association Daggers, adapted for TV starring David Morrissey as Thorne. Click here for Mark's website.

Joanna Trolloppe, chair of judges of next year’s Orange Prize for Fiction, an author of compelling non-fiction, historical novels and a string of massive contemporary successes, most recently the number one best-seller Daughters-in-Law. Click here for Joanna's website.

Francesca Simon, ex-medievalist, graduate of Yale and Oxford, originally from St Louis, Missouri, now one of the UK’s best-selling children’s writers, the creator of the immensely popular Horrid Henry series (15m copies and counting). Click here for Francesca's website.

Buy your tickets here

Over the weekend, Greg Mosse, leader of the MA Creative Writing programme at West Dean College, will chair ten panel discussions, featuring three inspiring and contrasting guests, carefully selected from the best of today’s authors, agents and publishers. Click here to download the timetable.

Topics will include:

- The Novel
- First-time authors
- What Agents Look For / What Editors Look For
- History & Biography
- Self-publishing
- E-publishing
- Writing for the Theatre & Film Adaptations
- Writer Career Development / Worries about Copyright
- Writing for Children
- ... and more ...

The 5th Chichester Writing Festival takes place over a single weekend (30 March–1 April 2012) in the stunning setting of West Dean College, near Chichester, in the South Downs National Park. The fee for the weekend is £249 including lunch and dinner. Accommodation for the weekend from £80 - £144 per person. Tickets can be purchased here or by calling 01243 818314

This dynamic weekend of headline interviews, discussions and debates is open to a maximum of 60 residential participants. It is a conversation between readers and writers – not all of the writers are on the platform, many are in the audience! The Festival is international, welcoming authors and publishers from different languages and backgrounds. It is a wonderful expression of Edward James’ vision for the Foundation that he so generously endowed – ‘an Eden for the arts.’

If you are unable to take part in the whole weekend, you can still buy individual tickets for the three Kate Mosse AN AUDIENCE WITH ...: events:

- Friday 30 March at 8pm, Mark Billingham,
- Saturday 31 March at 8pm, Joanna Trolloppe
- Sunday 1 April at 2pm, Francesca Simon

Tickets for these events are £12 each and can be purchased from the College January onwards.

To request information on West Dean’s year-round programme of creative writing courses and the Chichester Writing Festival email communications@westdean.org.uk. For more information about our MA in Creative Writing programme, led by Greg Mosse, please call +44 (0)1243 811301 or email diplomas@westdean.org.uk

To Book
You can save 5% by booking on-line or calling 01243 818314 for more details.

Accommodation
Accommodation is available for the weekend from £80 - £144 (includes accommodation and breakfast, dinner is included in the course fee). Non-student partners who wish to accompany you are welcome to share a room with you at a cost of £63 per night full board.

Writer's retreat Competition 2012

West Dean College and Myriad Editions invite you to enter the Writer's Retreat Competition 2012

In the past year Myriad have published some of the best and most exciting début novelists. As part of our mission to encourage and support creative writers,we’re delighted to be joining forces with West Dean College for a third year running to sponsor this annual competition for a work in progress.

Click herefor more details about the competition.