Kit de Waal to headline new festival celebrating women writers over 50 | Books

Writer Kit de Waal is set to headline a new UK festival celebrating writing by women over 50.

Forthwrite festival, due to take place on 15 March in Brighton and 30 March in Crawley, will offer “inspiring workshops and lively discussions with authors and publishing industry professionals”, said organisers.

In Crawley, de Waal will deliver a keynote speech and appear on a panel about how writers can get their work noticed alongside the authors Uju Asika and Nicola Williams. Novelists Dorothy Koomson and Eve Ainsworth will appear on a separate panel about persevering as a writer and overcoming rejection.

Annie Garthwaite will give the keynote speech in Brighton, while Yvonne Bailey-Smith, the mother of Zadie Smith and author of The Day I Fell Off My Island, is due to speak on a panel of writers who published their debuts after 50.

Other events include workshops on Toni Morrison’s Beloved, run by author Katy Massey, and one on graphic novels, led by former comics laureate Hannah Berry.

De Waal, who started writing in her mid-40s and whose books include My Name Is Leon, told non-profit organisation New Writing South “festivals like Forthwrite are important because older women are all too often pigeonholed and stereotyped.

“People assume we are grandmothers, we are helping out with grandchildren, we are winding down, we are gardening, we are going to tea dances and wearing elasticated trousers. We might be all of those things and there’s nothing wrong with any of them, but we are also fighters, powerful, assertive, active.

“We are single and happily childless, we are blissfully unattached and having great sex, we are taking no shit and no prisoners and we are claiming back some of the power we gave away in our younger years. And all of these things are what we are writing about and our stories are having more resonance than ever before.”

The festival is supported by Arts Council England and runs in partnership with New Writing South, with Crawley tickets subsidised by the local council. The Crawley events will take place at The Hawth theatre, while the Brighton talks will be held between Jubilee Library and The Old Courtroom.