Horsham District Year of Culture 2019

15th – 22nd June 2019

As the Steyning Festival is bi-annual, it won’t be on this year, but it is Horsham District Year of Culture 2019, so to mark that we are holding a special Steyning Book Lovers’ Week, as part of the annual Independent Bookshop Week.

Saturday 15th June - 10:30 - The Steyning Bookshop. ‘Imaginary Worlds’ Popular children’s author, Vashti Hardy will be leading a creative writing workshop exploring creating imaginary worlds. For children age 7+.

Saturday 15th June - 14:30 - Steyning Grammar School Drama Hall. Join our very own, award-winning children’s author Julia Donaldson and company including her guitar playing husband, Malcolm, and the Gruffalo, for an hour of dramatised stories and songs with plenty of audience participation. Books available for signing after the show. Suitable for 5+.

Sunday 16th June - 10: 30 for 11:00 - The Steyning Centre. Join much-loved children’s writer and illustrator Nick Sharratt for a Fathers’ Day Family Friendly Fun filled hour. Free bacon butties for Dads!

Monday 17th June - 19:30 - The Gluck Studio. Author Lucy Foley will discuss her latest novel The Hunting Party, a fiendishly twisty murder mystery set in a remote Scottish hunting lodge.

Tuesday 18th June - 14:00 - 16:00 The Gluck Studio. Creative writing workshop with coach Beth Miller will lead aspiring writers in a 2 hour workshop focussing on story and character development.

Tuesday 18th June - 19:30 - The Gluck Studio. Guy Stagg, winner of the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year Award, talks about his moving and thought-provoking travelogue ‘The Crossway’.

Wednesday 19th June - 19:30 - The Steyning Centre. Iranian-born novelist Dina Nayeri shares the stories of exile she gathered for her book ‘The Ungrateful Refugee’, in which she weaves her own moving story together with accounts from other asylum seekers. Here are the real human stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, and to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh.

Thursday 20th June - 19:30 - The Gluck Studio. Justin Hopper and Sharron Kraus. A magical evening of music and prose celebrating the release of Justin and Sharron’s album, ‘Chanctonbury Rings’.

Friday 21st June - 19:00 for 19:30 - Wiston House. Well-known physicist and broadcaster, Professor of the Public Engagement of Science, Jim Al-Khalili in conversation about his first work of fiction ‘Sunfall’. Kindly supported by Wilton Park.

Saturday 22nd June - 10:30 - The Steyning Bookshop. Doodle Fun with Guy Parker-Rees, author of Giraffes Can’t Dance. Drawing, dancing and general hilarity. Children age 4 - 7yrs will enjoy this event most.

Saturday 22nd June - 15:00 - The Gluck Studio. Mary-Ann Ochota’s Hidden Histories. Talk with slide show on a journey through Britain’s historic landscape. Free tea & cake!

Sunday 23rd June - 10:30 - Meet at Chanctonbury Ring Car Park. Join guided walk with Mary-Ann Ochota for a 2 hour guided circular walk around Chanctonbury Ring.