It wouldn’t be Bookie without Vanguard. We’re so glad that year on year, they return to bring their incredible readings to our lit fest. We catch up with Adrian Cross, Bookie trustee and Vanguard host, to chat about what went on in his Vanguard Readings session at the June Bookie.
What’s Vanguard Readings all about?
Vanguard Readings provides an opportunity, once a month, for new and established writers to try out fresh work on a live audience. Authors such as Hanif Kureishi and Toby Litt have appeared over the years. Its name is taken from Vanguard Studios in Clerkenwell where the first readings were held. Now firmly established in Peckham, South London, it shares the Bookie’s relaxed and unstuffy ethos, as we always decamp to the pub afterwards.
Vanguard also has a pedigree in publishing, producing poetry and short story collections, essays and experimental fiction. The poet Georges Szirtes and winner of Brazil’s Booker prize, Anna Teresa Pereira, are two of the masters of their craft who have featured in Vanguard Editions. We hope you caught them at the Vanguard 14 event at the festival.
How do you put an event like this together?
We aim to showcase exciting authors who have recently published a first novel or collection of short fiction, to help connect them to a wider audience.
Who took part?
We had the amazing actress Susannah Wise, Reuters foreign correspondent Rosalind Russell, food and travel writer Laura Price and Giles Fraser and Hannah Tovey, graduates of the country’s most successful creative writing course at the Faber Academy. Their fiction embraces a number of contemporary themes and genres, from thriller to comedy, and tries to make sense of the extraordinary times we live in.
To find out more about Vanguard Readings, visit their website here.