[K]endal Mountain Festival has announced the Kendal Mountain Literature Festival celebrating a diverse mix of literature and arts, covering the wide genre of ‘Outdoor’.
Kendal Mountain Festival is a true global adventure gathering and the main social event for outdoor enthusiasts in the UK; the new literature programme will form part of the main Festival weekend this November.
Artistic Director for the Festival, Claire Carter comments: This year we have extended our Arts & Literature reach beyond the mountain foothills and into the rivers, seascapes and streets of the contemporary outdoor. It’s been a thrilling few months working with new and known authors and artists who are redefining what ‘outdoor’ means, and how we interact with it. People are developing infinite new interactions with their environment. The Festival aims to connect this ingenuity with our beautiful mountain heritage, and celebrate the next generation’s inheritance and interpretation of the outdoor.
With a packed schedule of more than 20 author talks and discussions covering poetry, fiction, non-fiction, biographies, essays and spoken word, there truly is something for all tastes and ages in the new literature programme.
Highlights of the Literature Festival include an audience with Sir Chris Bonington who will talk about his memoir, ‘Ascent’, veteran war correspondent Judith Matloff investigating why so many conflicts occur at great heights, young nature writers; Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and Polly Atkin in conversation with T-S Elliot shortlisted poet Helen Mort. The Festival will also play host to Dr Fiona Edmonds exploring mountain-names and myths, and visiting from Mexico, Panorama editor Amy Gigi Alexander will lead a panel discussion on imagination and mountains, with a diverse collection of authors.
Award winning landscape and nature writer Robert Macfarlane has gladly accepted an invitation to become the Festival’s inaugural patron. “I am so proud to be a patron of the new Kendal Mountain Literature Festival – a celebration and exploration of our stories of place. I love the Lake District, the mountains – and all that this Festival stands. Its great theme is that of imagination’s relationship with landscape – and its great vision is to bring about participation by means of inspiration. So please come and join us here in Kendal, to launch this Festival in its first year.”
Kendal Mountain Festival will also proudly continue their association to host and support the prestigious Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature, established in 1983 to commemorate the lives of Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker.
To ensure an unforgettable weekend, Kendal Mountain Festival have created a Literature Lover’s Weekend package which includes:
- Two nights (Fri/Sat) bed & breakfast accommodation in Kendal
- Boardman Tasker Award tickets
- Tickets to the launch of Karen Lloyd’s book ‘The Blackbird Diaries’
- Literary event tickets (choose 5 from the available sessions)
- The ‘Best of Kendal’ film tickets – Sunday afternoon or evening
- A copy of the Boardman Tasker book winner
- A ‘Literature Lover’s Weekend’ Festival lanyard
This amazing package costs £289 for one person and £426 for two.*
Kendal Mountain Literature Festival will take place as part of the critically acclaimed Film Festival from November 16-19. Tickets for the literature programme are now on sale via http://www.mountainfest.co.uk/LiteratureFestival with tickets for the main Festival lectures, talks and specialist sessions on sale in September.
To browse Kendal Mountain Literature Festival’s full itinerary and book tickets visit: http://www.mountainfest.co.uk/LiteratureFestival
*For full details of the package and T&Cs, visit: www.mountainfest.co.uk/kendalweekends/literature
