Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden
By Rhian Waller – Gladstone’s Library PR and marketing
Gladfest 2023 is on the horizon!
This year, our friendly literary festival will be held on September 8 and 9 at Gladstone’s Library.
We understandably missed 2020 but this year is officially the festival’s 10th birthday!
In 2013 we asked some friendly writers if they’d like to hang out with us on a randomly-chosen weekend in September.
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We borrowed a stage from the local school and liberated every chair in the building for the audience. We didn’t know that our little event would still be going strong 10 years later, and we couldn’t have known how many friends we’d make doing it.
We’re thrilled to bits to be bringing it back again, with friends you know well, and friends you’ve not met yet.
Like 2022, it’s a smaller event, as the Library carefully works its way out of the pandemic impact.
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But we think it’s still the best, most exciting, friendliest festival around, and we would love you to join us.
You can stay (a few rooms will be available) or you can come for the day; you can join in virtually, too, as we remain committed to fully accessible events wherever possible.
However you make it to Hawarden, come and join in!
This year’s confirmed speakers will include Sarah Perry (the bestselling author of Melmoth and The Essex Serpent) and historian and biographer Sarah Watling (The Olivier Sisters).
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Gladstone’s Library staff will also be on hand to share the gems of the Library collections – the Reading Rooms team, including our Archivist and Librarian, will talk about William Gladstone’s personal correspondence, and Andrea Russell, our new Warden, will discuss the role of knowledge in an uncertain world.
We also have some mystery guests whose identity we will reveal soon!
Event tickets are already available to Friends of the Library (who get priority booking).
General tickets will go on sale on May 22, and we could not be more excited!
Visit www.gladstoneslibrary.org to find out how to join in – Gladfest is a great excuse to visit the Library if you have not done so already.
We hope to see you there…