New for 2025 – #SWLitFest evenings!
​
#SWLitFest is hosting two superb evening events at the renowned creative hub, 1 Mill Street, just round the corner from Jephson Gardens in central Leamington Spa.
​
Even if you can’t join us for the day on September 20th, you can still share in the spirit of the Festival as we sit back and enjoy the insightful and entertaining words of our guest authors.
​
Ticket price for each evening £22.50 (includes booking fee). Our evening events at 1, Mill Street start at 7pm with a chance to buy a drink at Fluters Bar and mingle before the main event kicks off at 7:30pm.
Thursday June 12th
Leamington Spa
Enjoy a lively summer evening of literature and laughs with authors Dr Adam Sharp and Sarah Jane Downing in the company of compere and journalist Jo Durrant.
Wordsmith Adam Sharp’s entertaining show blends monologue, stand-up and a reading of excerpts from his books as he journeys around the world in idioms, proverbs and general nonsense. A composer and curator of the best, worst and most nonsensical lists, Adam developed a following of over 90,000 like-minded language enthusiasts on social media (@AdamCSharp on Twitter and Bluesky). This led to a series of books published by Hachette: The Correct Order of Biscuits (2020) and most recently The Wheel is Spinning but the Hamster is Dead (September 2023). His lists have been featured in the Guardian, Irish Times, Stylist, Good Housekeeping, The Poke, The Bookshelf, The Knowledge, and Harper’s.
Sarah Jane Downing is an author and freelance journalist with a particular passion for the history of fashion and beauty. Fascinated with the interplay of fashion, culture and personality, she has written widely about the arts, contributing to Selvedge magazine since the first issue as well as national and local magazines and newspapers. She has written five books: The English Pleasure Garden 1660-1860, Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen, Beauty and Cosmetics 1550-1950, Fashion in the Time of William Shakespeare, and Pastimes and Pleasures in the Time of Jane Austen. This evening, Sarah Jane will be celebrating Jane Austin's 250 anniversary by focusing on the Gothic in Austen, framing it within the atmosphere of stern disapproval that surrounded female novel reading in the final decade of the 18th century when Jane wrote Northanger Abbey.
Thursday Sept 18th
Leamington Spa
Just a couple of days before our main Festival, join us for a special evening of readings and talks from well-travelled local authors Caroline Mills, Pauline Crame and Dr Helen Liebling.
Travel writer and journalist Caroline Mills is an award-winning travel writer specialising in travel throughout the UK and Europe. Alongside work for inter/national newspapers and magazines, she is the author of, and contributor to, more than a dozen travel books. These include Slow Travel The Cotswolds, now in its third edition, Camping Road Trips France & Germany: 30 adventures with your campervan, motorhome or tent, a collection of literary stories, and its sister title Camping Road Trips UK, winner of British Guild of Travel Writers’ Travel Guide Book of the Year. Her travels have taken her extensively across the globe, often as a solo female traveller experiencing overland ‘wild' camping adventures in road-less-travelled locations.
Helen Liebling has worked in Uganda, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Liberia, and South Africa. She has numerous journal publications has written four books and has carried out research with South Sudanese refugee survivors of SGBV and torture living in refugee settlements in Uganda. Helen provides consultancies, training and interventions to improve support for survivors of conflict-, sexual-, and gender-based violence and torture in conjunction with African organisations including Women’s International Peace Centre, Kampala, Uganda. She is a member of the Tearfund/SVRI steering group on the role of faith-based organisations in preventing conflict SGBV and a previous member of the Healing in Harmony Advisory Board, which has evaluated the impact on women conflict survivors’ health following participation in a music therapy programme.
Pauline Crame is a local author whose first book, The Affairs of Gods and Men, is semi-autobiographical and was shortlisted for the Luke Bitmead Bursary in 2012. Her second novel, Song In the Key of Madeleine, was shortlisted for the Yeovil Prize in 2013 and published by the Book Guild in 2021. Pauline has a particular interest in social injustice and societies different to her own. She has travelled extensively and the characters and places she has encountered have influenced much of her writing.