At Monty Lit Fest, we love writing that features a strong sense of place or well-developed setting. It can make all the difference between simply enjoying a piece of writing and being totally immersed in it.
Whether a real geographical location or a fictional universe created by the author, the vivid use of physical landscape, time periods, climate or culture can be a means of creating real connection between writer and reader. And that’s true of both fiction and creative non-fiction too.
It’s also a theme that runs strongly through this year’s Festival. You’ll have the chance to hear from several authors who are masters of creating compelling settings for their work.
Tim Pears takes us to Roman Britain in AD72, where a young Roman slave and the daughter of a Celtic tribal leader flee west from the Welsh Borders in the hope of reaching the sea. It’s a story that immerses us in lost landscapes, ancestries under threat and love at a time of conflict and change.
Carys Davies’ novel, Clear, transports us to the remote Shetland island in the 1840s for an extraordinary tale of connection and redemption in the face of isolation, clashing cultures and a dying language.
Siân Hughes grew up in a small village in Cheshire, and every day she used to cycle past an old house that was to become the setting for her brilliant debut novel, Pearl. The ramshackle house and the landscape around it form the perfect backdrop for a wonderful evocation of late 20th-century rural life and the trauma of loss and grief.
Our Sense of place panel brings together three writers who excel at the use of place to drive their narratives. Monty Lit Fest favourites, Jon Gower and Myfanwy Alexander are joined by crime writer, Chris Lloyd, author of the award-winning Eddie Giral series set in Occupied Paris.
If, like us, you like to be totally immersed in a story and its setting, then join us for a series of sessions that promise lively and inspiring discussions that will tell us more about such a crucial element of storytelling.
Tickets are all sessions are available online, or in person at The Montgomery Bookshop or Ivy House Café in Montgomery.