Monty Lit Fest - Gŵyl Llên Maldwyn

Montgomeryshire Literary Festival goes virtual

Online events celebrate 2020 Festival weekend

This year’s Monty Lit Fest may have fallen victim to Covid-19, but we’re not going to let a little thing like a pandemic get in the way of celebrating what would have been our Festival weekend.

On 12th and 13th June, we’re going virtual, running online sessions to talk and think about the books that can continue to enliven lock down.

On Friday 12th June, we’ll be celebrating the launch of local author Myfanwy Alexander’s latest Daf Davies adventure, Burning Issue. There’ll be readings, a quiz and the chance to hear from the author herself. There’ll also be some exciting news about Myfanwy’s Bloody Eisteddfod.

This session will run from 8.00-9.30pm.

On Saturday 13th June, we’ve invited four writers who will be with us in 2021 to help us create our Top 10 #Montylockdownreads list.

We’ll be asking Steve Doherty, Julia Forster, Alix Nathan and Mike Parker what they’ve been reading during lock down, books they’d recommend for a pandemic and what they’re most looking forward to – book-wise – once we’re back to our new normal.

Come ready to share your own lock down book recommendations; they might make it to our Top 10!

This session will run from 7.30 – 9.00pm.

The sessions are free. All you need to do is to register via our website, www.montylitfest.com

Festival Chair, Sarah Morris, said: “Books and reading have really proven their worth during lock down, transporting us with stories and worlds that take us beyond the confines of our own homes. Everyone at Monty Lit Fest has really missed all the excitement of planning for the live Festival. We wanted to mark the Festival weekend by giving all our wonderful supporters the chance to hear from just some of the brilliant authors they can meet in person in 2021.”

Save the date:

We’ll be back bigger and better than ever in 2021: join us over the weekend of 11th-13th June in the beautiful town of Montgomery.

About Monty Lit Fest

Monty Lit Fest is an annual literary festival which celebrates writing in Wales and the Welsh borders. To find out more:
• visit the website at www.montylitfest.com
• follow Monty Lit Fest on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
• sign up to our newsletter via the website
• email: enquiries@montylitfest.com.

WINNER ANNOUNCED FOR MONTY LIT FEST BOOKMARK COMPETITION

At the beginning of the year, when Montgomeryshire Literary Festival was still scheduled to take place in 2020, a competition was launched for children to design a bookmark. The Monty Lit Fest committee is delighted to announce that the winner is Woody Jones, aged 10, who is a pupil at Montgomery Church in Wales Primary School.

The competition was open to all children under the age of 12, who were asked to design a bookmark depicting their love of books. 27 entries were received, including designs in pencil, felt tip, crayon, paint and computer-generated graphics. The wonderful creations were judged online by the sponsors of the festival including Eaves & Lord Bookshop, Field Mouse Research, Halls, Harrisons, Montgomery Vineyard and Walkers are Welcome Montgomery.

Due to the high standard of entries, there was a close spread of votes over the top five designs, so it was necessary to turn to Monty Lit Fest authors for a second round of selection. 12 out of the 21 confirmed festival writers happily became involved and Woody’s design was chosen as the winner. Woody loves doodles and his bookmark reflects this with a striking black and white design. It will be reproduced as printed bookmarks, to promote the Literary Festival which will now take place in Montgomery from 11-13th June, 2021. Woody also won a personalised book bag, donated by The Clever Baggers, and a signed book by children’s author Debi Evans, in addition to some other prizes.

The close runners-up were Sicily Dickinson in second place and Daisy Evans in third, who also received book bags and books. It is planned that all 27 entries will be displayed at the festival next year and as many of the judges commented, the entries were all so marvellous, it’s a shame there couldn’t be more than one winner. The Monty Lit Fest committee would like to thank everyone who entered, the judges and those who donated prizes for this competition and are looking forward to seeing the winning design reproduced as a bookmark next year, with particular thanks and congratulations to Woody.

Monty Lit Fest is an annual festival which celebrates writing in Wales and the Welsh borders. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic is was necessary to postpone this year’s festival but to find out more about the 11th – 13th June, 2021 event in Montgomery, visit the website at www.montylitfest.com, follow Monty Lit Fest on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, sign up to the newsletter via the website or email enquiries@montylitfest.com.