About the Festival
The Festival Team
Festival Managing Committee
By its fourth year, the festival had more than doubled in size, with over 50 events and sell-out audiences at many venues. So 2006 saw the launch of a new managing committee for the festival, incorporating individuals from Cambridge’s business, academic, publishing and public service communities. The festival team now consists of:
- Cathy Moore, Director and Founder
- Nigel Brown, The Stradivari Trust
- Jo Browning-Wroe, Writer and Teacher of Creative Writing
- Laura Dietz, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Head of the MA in Creative Writing, Anglia Ruskin University
- Rachel Calder, Proprietor, Sayle Literary Agency, Cambridge
- Jane Rich, Arts Fundraising
- Charlotte Sankey, Head of Publications, Web & Digital Media, University of Cambridge
- Morag Styles, Reader in Children’s Literature, Homerton College
- Helen Taylor, Literature Development Officer, Cambridgeshire County Council
- Melanie Taylor, Admissions Tutor, Corpus Christi College
- Anne Worthington, Children’s Services Librarian, Cambridgeshire Libraries
- Nigel Cutting, Cambridge City Council, Head of Arts and Entertainments.
- Michelle Golder, Writer
Festival Patrons
In 2007, the festival was thrilled to announce the appointment of three festival Patrons all of whom are prominent writers from the region and have appeared at the festival:
Dame Gillian Beer
Distinguished critic and recent King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge, Dame Gillian Beer is currently President of the British Comparative Literature Association and on the Council of Arts Council England, East. She is in the final stages of a new book called Alice in Space.
Ali Smith
Whitbread Novel of the Year winner for The Accidental (2004), Ali Smith’s latest book, Girl Meets Boy, is a retelling of Ovid’s Iphis legend. Ali Smith is also an accomplished writer of short stories and a regular contributor of articles and reviews to journals and newspapers including The Scotsman, The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement.
Rowan Pelling
Rowan Pelling is a columnist for the Independent on Sunday and regularly writes for a wide variety of other publications. She is a regular guest on Radio 4, is a former Man Booker Prize judge and edited The Decadent Handbook (2006). Until recently, she was also the editor of The Erotic Review, which she helped to transform from a foolscap newsletter to a popular magazine.
