Dartington Hall, Totnes
Of all the Literary Festivals I’ve appeared at this year, Ways With Words at the beautiful Dartington Hall in Totnes is the one that has given me the biggest squidgy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The annual festival takes place from July 10-19 at Dartington Hall in South Devon and my slot is carved into the schedule on Monday 13th at 2pm.
“Few people who visit Dartington Hall are untouched by its magic,” explains Festival Director, Kay Dunbar. “The combination of the medieval courtyard, the majestic Great Hall and the extensive gardens and woodlands creates a captivating setting for a literature festival,” she adds.
This year, the Ways With Words festival brings together an eclectic mix of over 150 writers, poets, actors, politicians and broadcasters to give talks, debate, perform and inspire.
Themed days include People and Places, Leisure and Pleasure, History, Belief, Psychology, Words and Pictures, Science and of course, The Environment (yea, that’ll be my day)…
Some of my own personal heros are on in the morning – here’s the schedule.
Transition Morning
Life after Oil: The Transition Town Route
What will life be like when oil is in short supply? How will it affect our daily lives, our homes, jobs and families? What can we do to prepare for the changes ahead?
This vital issue will be addressed by a variety of speakers who are working to ensure a gentle transition to new ways of living.
The morning will be led by Rob Hopkins, director of the Transition Network.
9.30am Rob Hopkins – Introduction
A film and talk on the inspirational work being done all over the world by the Transition Network, why it is important that as individuals and communities we address now the issues around a diminishing oil supply.
10.20am Shaun Chamberlin – The Transition Timeline
The four possible ways of approaching the twin problems of climate change and peak oil are considered, from the head-in-the-sand approach of many governments to pro-active strategies for a peaceful transition to a society less dependent on oil.
11.20am Break
11.50am Tamzin Pinkerton and Rob Hopkins
Creating food security in your community – A Transition Guide
Hear about the exciting initiatives taking place in the UK to create resilient food supplies locally and reduce our dependency on food from far away.
12.15 pm Questions and answers
(In association with Green Books)
And after lunch, it’s me and there are some other smashers in the line up for the rest of the day.
Fancy coming?
There are still a few tickets left. Hop onto www.WaysWithWords.co.uk and I’ll see you there.
Rubbishly yours,
TS x
Great site, I now have you bookmarked to come back again.
Hi Tracey
Forgive me for contacting you this way – I couldn’t see any other. But I have had an idea after reading the Co-Op magazine the other day and discovering some ‘eco-warriors’.
My idea is involving what all of you already are doing. It seem to me that all three of you have the right idea – to blog and get the point across and I wondered whether there would be any scope in offering a site that allows others with similar thoughts and ideas to blog as a ‘team’. Your site is run by the wordpress.com software and in Joe’s blog he lists a site called neftriplecrunch.wordpress.com. Your site and the one listed by Joe have been built on software developed by the wordpress team to allow multiple blogging. What I am proposing is to do the same. Build a site on similar grounds that would allow people with eco ideas to blog together.
The site I thought I could register is eco-blogs.co.uk. It would be free for all to sign up for a blog and there would be no paid advertising. Of course it might be good to advertise certain ventures free of charge but that could be developed as a policy for the site at a future date. I won’t make money out of this is what I am saying. I would however like to provide it to the community if you think it would be a goer.
By the way I am not expecting you to transfer your blog at all. Could you just say whether you think it would be a good idea and whether you would be involved in promoting it.
Many thanks for reading this email and I look forward to hearing from you.
Rich
Thank you.
TS