Town’s Lit Fest event to go online next month

THE popular Lit Fest book celebration is returning to Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, and will be an online event for this year.

Now in its fourth year, for the first time the celebration goes virtual between April 24 and April 25.

Organisers hope it will bring the local event to a wider audience across the UK – and maybe even beyond.

Last year’s festival was called off due to the Covid-19 pandemic hitting the UK just weeks before it was set to take place. It was with a heavy heart, given the enormous amount of work and money that went into preparing the 2020 event, that the organisers pulled the plug.

Usually there are several venues dotted across the town where book and poetry readings take place and talks with authors, but that was just not possible last year, or indeed this year.

Organisers had looked into postponing or streaming last year’s events at short notice, to provide much-needed diversion for people at home during that first UK-wide lockdown. However, after careful consideration of circumstances and the financial and manpower situation they realised that would not be possible. Now, after months of preparation, Llandeilo Lit Fest is very much stamped on the calendar as a two-day event – albeit virtually.

In a statement on its website, the festival said: “Thanks to the online streaming by Fresh Productions our sessions will be recorded and can be accessed after the event, so everyone has the option to see all the sessions, so please save the date.”

One name already confirmed for the event is Carmarthen author Julie Ma, who has recently published her first novel, Happy Families, a tale of three generations of a Chinese family.

Julie, who runs a Chinese takeaway in Carmarthen, won popular daytime TV couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan’s Search For A Bestseller book competition last year.

For email updates contact LlandeiloLitFest@mail.com

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