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• Meg Rosoff
  Venue: Chelmsford Library
  Event: Basildon & Billericay French Circle
  Date 15/11/2012

  We're very excited about Meg Rosoff coming to Chelmsford Library. Meg will read from her latest book There is No Dog; answer questions from the audience; offer tips and advice on creative writing; and help Essex Book Festival announce details of Get it Writ, a new short story competition, linked to the 2013 Essex Book Festival, aimed at getting people across Essex writing. The Meg Rosoff event is free of charge but places must be reserved in advance by emailing Andrew.Ward@essex.gov.uk or calling him on 01245 244615.

   Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now won the Guardian and Branford Boase Awards and was short-listed for the Orange Prize for New Fiction as well as the Whitbread. Passion Pictures and Prospect Entertainment (whose previous credits include the Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September) recently secured the film rights to the book. Just in Case won the coveted and most prestigious children’s book prize, the Carnegie Medal, in 2007. What I Was is set in Suffolk where Meg has a second home. The Bride’s Farewell was also short-listed for the Carnegie Medal and There is No Dog is Meg’s much-anticipated fifth novel.
   
  Meg’s appearance on 29 November is a writers’ road show event organised by Essex Book Festival in collaboration with Just Imagine Story Centre, Chelmsford. 

• Get it Writ
  Date 08/10/2012

  Get it Writ is an exciting new writing competition linked to the 2013 Essex Book Festival, aimed at encouraging anyone aged 16 or over who lives, works or studies in Essex, to get writing.

  Would-be writers are often advised "Don't get it right, get it writ". In other words, don't let a fear of failure or wanting to achieve perfection get in the way of you telling the story you want to write.  After all, lots of us have good ideas - but writers actually write them down.

  Whether you are an aspiring writer, a new writer or have been writing for a while and would like to explore the short story form, this competition is for you.  Entry is free.  Submissions open on 1 October 2012 and the deadline for submissions is 31 December 2012.  An independent panel of judges will read all stories submitted and will shortlist six writers whose stories will receive a public reading near the beginning of the 2013 Essex Book Festival.  The overall winner will be selected by overall competition judge Andrew Cowan, Director of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, the author of 'The Art of Writing Fiction' and a novelist whose latest book 'Worthless Men' will be published by Septre in February 2013.  The overall winner's story will be read towards the end of the Essex Book Festival in March 2013.

  The six shortlisted writers will also benefit from a day of mentoring and an individual script surgery with overall competition judge Andrew Cowan, plus a small financial commission to help them develop their story.  Readings of the shortlisted stories will also be filmed and uploaded on the Essex Book Festival web site at www.essexbookfestival.org.uk

  The theme of the competition is 'the Legacy of summer 2012' and you are encouraged to interpret this as freely and imaginatively as you wish using no more than 500 words.

  So don't worry about getting it right, just Get it Writ.

• The Giants Are Coming!
  Date 08/11/2011

  Today, Arts Development is launching a new storytelling project that invites people of all ages across Essex to create their own giant inspired stories and poems.   The Giants Are Coming is inspired by Sparks will Fly in Essex an outdoor cultural programme for 2012 which will see two larger-the-life visitors will arrive in Essex in May 2012 and visit towns across the county, creating a spectacle wherever they go!  These specially made structures will be created by outdoor performance specialists, Walk the Plank. So you see, the giants really are coming!

   
  Please visit www.giantsarecoming.co.uk and have a go at your own giant inspired stories to add to the collection!

• Team Hadleigh Fun Day
  Venue: Hadleigh Old Fire Station
  Event: Team Hadleigh Fun Day
  Date 11/08/2011

  Had a great time on the 29th July the other week over at the recently renovated Hadleigh Old Fire Station. There was loads going on to celebrate the Mountain Bike Test Event that was taking place over at Hadleigh Country Park on the Sunday.

  In addition to health checks, rowing machines, trixter bikes and Boccia going on inside there were also plenty of little ones taking part in circus skills as well.

  I also had a very interesting chat with the people from the Fire Engine Museum who brought along an old fire engine which they parked outside which sparked a lot of interest.

  Things also got even more energetic in the afternoon when the Bhangrasise got started, a mixture of Bhangra Dance and exercise which really does make you feel the burn whilst trying out some new dance moves!

  Local artist Alan Hockett was also showing people how to take amazing photos by pin hole cameras which he developed up in his studio - you really do get some great results from pin hole cameras so I’ll be trying to take a few pictures this way myself!