The Authors’ Forum is a relatively new idea at the Bird Fair but it has certainly caught on.
It allows authors to talk about their latest books and the audience to question them – or just have a look at the face, listen to the voice and explore the thoughts of the person whose name appears on the cover of their favourite nature book. And if you were wondering about whether to buy a book or not, then five minutes in the company of its author will probably seal the deal one way or another.
And publishers like it because they can flog books to you (authors like it for that reason too)!
Here is a list of authors whose books have been reviewed here in the last year who are speaking at the Bird Fair Authors’s Forum:
Friday:
12:15 Tiffany Francis, Food you can forage Cancelled
14:15 Patrick Barkham, Islander
15:15 Joe Shute, A Shadow Above
16:15 Mary Colwell, Curlew Moon
Saturday:
09:30 Tessa Boase, Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather
10:15 Tim Birkhead, The Wonderful Mr Willughby
12:15 Mark Cocker, Our Place
16:15 Jon Dunn, Orchid Summer
17:00 James Lowen, 52 EuropeanWildlife Weekends
Sunday:
14:15 Laurence Rose, The Long Spring
I couldn’t agree more – this and the art tent are my joint favourite places to be at Birdfair. Some sessions are standing room only, but they’re all well worth a look and need supporting. I still chuckle thinking about the Birdfair 2016 Volunteer who loudly announced to a well known writer who’d written about birding through a time of ill-health (and those queuing to buy the book): “your book sounds excellent, but your talk needs a lot of work!” then strode off…without buying it.
Dearly Beloved Mrs C is in a fearful bate today because of the incompetence and tardiness of an editor and some authors. I’m going to see whether the pharmacist in Tesco will sell me some tranquillisers for her that I can grind up and slip into bowl of Ooja-Booja ice cream so I can get some P&Q after all it’s not my fault. She’s tried ranting at the Dog but she doesn’t understand any of the words so it just amounts to pointless venting, but with slightly more point than Twitter. So there should be a Copy Editor’s and Proof Readers Forum at Bird and Book Fairs where the public are made aware of all the pointless human suffering that goes into making books readable.
None of the authors shown above are implicated, btw