Arundel Literary Festival : March 6th – March 8th 2025
A 3 day celebration of all things literary
Daytime sessions 11am – 6pm
Thursday daytime sessions 11am – 6pm in the Red Room – click here for full details
Friday daytime sessions 11am – 6pm in the Red Room – click here for full details
Saturday daytime sessions 11am – 6pm in the Red Room – click here for full details
Evening concerts 7:30pm – 10pm
Thursday evening concert 7:30pm in the Red Room – click here for full details
Friday evening concert 7:30pm in the Red Room – click here for full details
Saturday evening concert 7:30pm in the Red Room – click here for full details
or jump straight to ticketing website – click here for all tickets
Competitions
Poetry Competition
Adjudicated by Janet Sutherland
Janet Sutherland is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Messenger House (Shearsman Books, 2023) about her great-great-grandfather’s travels to Serbia in the 1840’s. Published in magazines such as New Statesman and The Spectator, she won the 2017 Kent and Sussex Poetry Prize and received a 2018 Hawthornden Fellowship. https://www.janetsutherland.co.uk/
Winners announced!
1st prize to Pat Murgatroyd for ‘Ghazal: In Memory Of’
2nd prize to Neil Douglas for ‘1970 After Mark Rothko’
Highly commended
Mark Totterdell for ‘Hangman Grits’
Sue Proffitt for ‘Heart’
Sandra Noel for ‘Water accepts death, though not for itself’
Stella Hervey Birrell for ‘My mother: laughing’
Chris Warren-Adamson for ‘Not Orban’s City Szekesfehervar’
Katie Griffiths for ‘Nous’
Flash Fiction Competition
Adjudicated by Tracy Fells
Tracy is a West Sussex based writer of flash and micro fiction with over 100 short stories published online and in print journals (X: @theliterarypig)
Winners announced!
1st prize to Jacky Taylor for ‘At the Water’s Edge’
2nd prize to Sarah Leavesley for ‘The Crown’
Highly commended
Maria O’Brien for ‘A feather falls at her feet’
Shaun Aston for ‘All Hallows Eve’
Emma Mather for ‘First Love Metamorphosis’
Martin Barker for ‘The Cloud Cutter and the Painter of Butterflies’
How to enter
Closing date for both competitions is February 17th. Winners will be notified on March 1st and invited to read their work, should they wish to, at the final evening event of the Literary Festival on March 9th in the Victoria Institute.
1. Submit £5 entry fee below (per poem or piece of fiction)
2. Email your entry to events@thevictoriainstitute.com – note: don’t include your name on the poem or piece of fiction itself.
Please use events@thevictoriainstitute.com email address rather than info@thevictoriainstitute.com or we may not receive your entry.
3. Include in your email:
– Your name
– Your contact phone number
– Your entry fee payment reference number that you receive by email when you submit your payment
Once the closing date is reached, all entries will be presented anonymously to the judges.
For both competitions, judges decisions are final. Copyright remains with the authors. Minimum age for entering either competition is 16 years. Must be a UK (including Channel Islands) resident.
Writing Workshops
Thursday 7th
10:00 – 1:00
Flash fiction writing with Tracy Fells
Helping writers at all levels experiment and explore how you can surprise yourself, and your readers when you write flash fiction. Using prompts, exercises and readings, we’ll work on creating stories where a short word count can pack an emotional punch.
For beginners to experienced writers.
Thursday 7th
2:00 – 5:00
Writing for radio with Simon Brett
Some thoughts on the potential of only using words and sounds, with the listeners providing the pictures in their minds, and ideas for how to put these into practice in writing radio scripts.
For beginners to experienced writers.
Friday 8th
10:00 – 1:00
Character in prose with Jude Hayland & Marie Johnston
Creating characters on the page that convince, bringing authenticity to a story’s protagonists, is a given for any writer of fiction. But how? In this practical workshop we will explore a diversity of original and dynamic methods and techniques aimed at enhancing characterisation in all fiction.
For beginners to experienced writers.
Friday 8th
2:00 – 5:00
Generating new poems, improving drafts with Katie Griffiths and Mary Mulholland
For experienced poetry writers, this Red Door Poets’ Workshop will be run as two halves. The first half, led by Katie, will focus on generating brand new poems on themes inspired by March, the month named after Mars, the Roman god of war, and address how conflict can be written about in poetry. In the second half Mary will use her toolbox of ideas on form, titles, line breaks, e.t.c. to help participants edit their own writing and find a way to breathe new life into a poem that isn’t working.
Participants should bring a notebook and pen, and a draft of a poem already written which they don’t feel is working yet, preferably (not too long, ideally up to 20 lines ) so we can work at it.
All other materials will be provided.For experienced writers.
Saturday 9th
10:00 – 1:00
Introduction to writing poetry with Theresa Gooda
What makes poetry different from other forms of writing? Activities will focus on how objects and visual images can be used to draw on memory and experience, and will also consider the interplay between language and poetic form.
For beginners to experienced writers.
Workshop places are priced at £20 each. Places are limited to 10 for each workshop.
(Day and half day tickets are for the separately listed events taking place each day)
Click below to reserve your place on a workshop.