Leiston Book Festival is back for a second year – this time as a Community Interest Company, with support from Sizewell C Community Fund. Festival Curator Robert Ashton explains all
Can remind people who you are and what you do?
I’m Robert Ashton and after nearly 36 years living in Norfolk, I returned to Suffolk in 2022 and now live at Leiston, where my wife and I both grew up. She tells me I’m retired now, and I do enjoy free bus travel so it must be true, but my latest book Where are the Fellows who Cut the Hay is selling well and I’m getting lots of invitations to speak at literary events across the UK.
My next book is also starting to take shape, and I’m a trustee of Leiston’s Long Shop Museum, which celebrates the town’s rich industrial heritage, so don’t have time to get bored. Because Leiston is so different to nearby towns such as Aldeburgh and Southwold, people often overlook it and assume it’s a place where nothing happens. I’m trying to challenge that perception!
What can you tell us about Leiston Book Festival?
People doubted that a book festival would work in Leiston, but last September more than 150 people came to the town’s Edwardian film theatre to hear six authors on stage. The festival is focused on books that explore our changing landscape and environment, and that theme sets Leiston’s book festival apart from others.
Last year I delivered the festival single-handedly, but now that it is incorporated as a CIC with a brilliant board of directors, it’s very much a team effort. Importantly, being team-led means that the festival will evolve and grow, and continue long after I step down.
Why are tickets for Leiston Book Festival cheaper than those of other festivals in Suffolk?
From the start we’ve been keen to see this as a festival for Leiston, rather than being a festival that just happens to take place in Leiston. We’ve kept the price at just £30 for the whole day, and thanks to a grant from the Sizewell C Community Fund are able to offer discounted tickets to Leiston residents who are living on benefits.
Of course we also want to bring people to Leiston who perhaps have never visited the town before, who will want to attend what we believe is the only UK book festival focused entirely on nature writing in its broadest sense. Our goal is to sell all 200 tickets, not to make a profit.
Who else has supported the festival?
Halesworth Bookshop have been great, helping us reach the right authors and interviewers, and on the day they’ll have a pop-up bookshop at the venue so that people can buy the books our authors speak about. We’ve also had grants from a range of funders, from Galloper Wind Farm to Persimmon Homes, and the Tudwick Foundation, whose grant has enabled us to hire an excellent festival host.
Yesterday we learned that we’ve been awarded more than £50,000 over the next three years by the Sizewell C Community Fund. This secures the future of the festival.
I’m flattered, as someone with an entrepreneurial background, to have created something that in its second year has been so successful at winning grants and support.
What plans do you have for the future?
Of course the book festival will continue as a one-day event each September, but we’re already planning to stage occasional Leiston Book Festival Extra events which will bring yet more interesting writers for evening events on stage in the town.
We’re also planning to work with our local primary school to get youngsters writing about nature, and alongside that to encourage older people to write down their memories of how Leiston was in the past. Leiston has a history of innovation and doing things differently, and we want to continue that tradition.
How can people buy tickets?
Tickets for Leiston Book Festival, which takes place on Saturday 20 September, can be bought via our website leistonbookfestival.co.uk We have a line-up of six authors, and tickets for the day are priced at just £30 for the full day’s programme.
The second Leiston Book Festival takes place at Leiston Film Theatre on Saturday September 20, 2025. The Festival has been awarded £54,137 by the Sizewell C Community Fund to run the festival for the next three years, as well as outreach activities such as workshops, talks and school visits.
Featured images – supplied
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