literary festival – Literature & Landscape

It’s been over a month now since our festival in Wells.

We hope you had as much fun and as interesting a time as we did: we loved the exhibition and artists, the writers, their books and fascinating careers, and the many, many discussions – formal and informal – that sprang out of such a great mix of people coming together on stage and in the audience over one weekend. We loved the schools’ programme (more on that later) and unexpectedly we even ended up appreciating the wild weather that blew in to remind us of the forces that shape the place we and many other living things call home.

We would also love to know your thoughts on how the weekend went.

Please click on the feedback button to tell us what brought you to our festival and what you think worked well. Please pass on any hot tips you have about spreading the word and anything else you would like us to know.

Meanwhile please scroll below for a quick reminder of our wonderful speakers…

John Mullan and Alan Hollinghurst
Richard Mabey and Patrick Barkham
Mark Cocker and Charles Clover
Patrick Galbraith and Katrina Porteous
Matthew Hollis and Bernard O’Donoghue
Tor Falcon
Beatrice Forshall

We’re delighted to be able to share this discussion in which the BBC’s Joe Crowley expertly questioned Jake Fiennes and Tony Juniper CBE about the biodiversity crisis, and what – if anything – can be done to help nature to recover. The UK population is growing; we need food, water and more housing, and all of those demand space and resources, while nature continues to be squeezed out.

Tony Juniper CBE is Chair of Natural England and has spent 40 years campaigning nationally and internationally to save endangered species, drive policy changes and change thinking on biodiversity, recycling, industrial pollution, rights of way and the climate crisis. He has held leading roles in WWF, Friends of the Earth, Birdlife International and the Wildlife Trusts and is also the author of 11 books (with another on the way).

Jake Fiennes’s 2022 book Land Healer brought together 30 years of experience in restorative land management. He is a pioneering and passionate Head of Conservation on the Holkham Estate, including Britain’s largest privately owned nature reserve. On the screen behind this discussion, a slideshow of Jake’s stunning photographs showed the flourishing results of years of hard work.

Norfolk arguably leads the country in both food production and conservation. It was the festival’s privilege to host this honest and urgent discussion about creative solutions to an existential issue.

NB if the red button won’t play this content on your device, please try instead clicking the ‘watch on YouTube’ link in the bottom left-hand corner of the image.