CHAGWORD — a well established literary festival in Chagford — will be returning to the town this weekend for its third year running.

Organisers said the return of the festival was thanks to a great enthusiasm and love of books in Chagford and that this year’s programme will be testament to residents’ appetite for literature.

Starting tomorrow (Friday) for three days there will be world class writers in almost every field of literature to delight, entertain, challenge and inspire audiences of all tastes and ages appearing in a range of local venues.

At this year’s festival visitors will be treated to an impressive group of guest speakers including prize-winning novelist Max Porter, chef of a Michelin star restaurant Shaun Hill, as well as established authors Patrick Gale and Sophie Hannah.

Melissa Brooks, an organiser of the festival, said: ‘We are delighted to be running the festival for its third year! We have an exciting line up of events, guest speakers as well as plenty of activities for all the family.

‘One of the speakers, Max Porter, who won the Dylan Thomas prize in 2016 and was recently awarded the Sunday Times/Peter Frazer Dunlop young writer of the year award, will be discussing his fantastic debut novel Grief is The Thing with Feathers. 

‘Shaun Hill is a legend in British cooking! He has spent 50 years in the kitchen, heading various Michelin-starred restaurants including nine years at the Gidleigh Park Hotel. He will be discussing his latest cookery books.

‘Another exciting speaker at the festival will be Patrick Gale who will be talking about his latest book called A Place Called Winter. Patrick also has a new TV drama coming out shortly whose cast is rumoured to include Vanessa Redgrave!’

Full details of the Chagword programme can be found on www.chagword.co.uk.