Anstice Brown and the Boston Book Festival (UK)

The Boston Book Festival was held over three days, 17 – 19 September, but learning about it at the last minute I could only make it for a short time on the Sunday where I met up with fellow Tweeter Anstice Brown. Anstice is a Lincolnshire writer living on the East coast. She describes herself as an ‘Author of speculative fiction.’ Her website is https://ansticebrown.com/ Her latest short story “Beneath the Roots” is due for publication on 21st September in the anthology “Fall into Fantasy“. She is currently writing a full length novel which I’m looking forward to reading.

Being short on time owing to commitments and therefore not having bought tickets for any of the speakers over the three days who included Benjamin Zephaniah and Michael Morpungo, I don’t feel I can really give a nuanced review of the festival except to say I had expected a lot more people to be visiting the Guildhall. This was a free entry area where authors had set out their stalls to ply their wares and talk to visitors. The atmosphere was not great in that the exhibitors’ rooms were not together and there was a long corridor to be negotiated between them and some tricky stairs getting down to the kitchen area. I would have thought between midday and one o’clock was a peak time for visitors, I hope more people dropped by in the afternoon.

While, in my view, not exactly suited for book fair exhibitons, Boston Guildhall is an amazing building. Check it out here – https://www.mybostonuk.com/bostonguildhall/ I found the kitchens to be the most interesting part and I took some photogrpahs that I’m posting below.

This was my first book festival and I’m sure it will not be the last. I’ll keep you posted.