Day four dawned with the always brilliant Elise Valmorbida and her creative writing workshop on how outsiderness isn’t always a bad thing. Reading from her new book, The Happy Writing Book, as well as giving her top tips and expert advice, the sell-out event was a huge hit, with the beginnings of a new book club taking shape.

Next up were the incredible duo of Samantha Ellis and Emily Midorikawa to discuss uncovering past lives, their brilliant books, the Bronte’s, and some of history’s greatest and overlooked women writers. And if that wasn’t enough, we had the equally entertaining and chatty Jude Cook and Sam Mills talking about their paths to publishing, the story behind their books, as well as all round audience interaction throughout.

But we couldn’t go on forever. So thought we would end on a special finale, an epic reading of T.S Eliot’s The Waste Land. Partly written about and mostly inspired by the Margate seafront, Richard Skinner of Vanguard Readings returned to bring us a spectacular reading by three of Faber’s outstanding poets; David Harsent, Hannah Sullivan, and Richard Scott. The trio brought the poem to life in an incredible way and we were humbled to have them perform with us.

The festival was fantastic, the presenters more so, and the audiences were brilliant. We couldn’t have asked for a bigger welcome back than we got.

Our thanks goes to our funders, Arts Council England, The Jan Michalski Foundation, Kent County Council, and their amazing Reconnect programme. 

We couldn’t have held such a great festival without the help of our amazing venues, Turner Contemporary, Elsewhere, and The Lifeboat.

Our wonderful presenters and performers were spot on, and gave 100%, for which we are really grateful.

And of course to Team Bookie and our fantastic cohort of volunteers. It wouldn’t have been possible without you and your dedication to Margate Bookie.

So, here’s looking forward to #Bookie23!