Welcome to the Havant Literary Festival - celebrating the written and spoken word in the Borough of Havant.

Before you read on to be reminded of 2011, and in case you think that we are resting on our laurels, here is a taster for our mini Festival this year - 2012. Our aim is to provide something for all ages and, hopefully, tastes; something for aspiring writers, poets and all you readers out there. So here goes.

Keep free the evening of 19th October and the whole of Saturday, 20th to enjoy the variety of events taking place at The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, Havant.

Weather Vane

These include on Friday evening a Bookshelf Barney where well-known writers and artists pitch the book which they think is 'the best book ever written'. An impossible task you may say, but they will all be passionate about their choice. Organised by Wordsouth, the names of those taking part will be announced shortly.

Sculpture

Saturday will offer a writing workshop for young people from local schools with Miriam Halahmy whose gripping novel for young teenagers, 'Hidden', set on Hayling Island, was shortlisted for several awards, and whose latest, 'Illegal', an exciting sequel, has just been published.

We are delighted that crime writer, Graham Hurley, will join us to share the how and why of his prodigious output, much of which is set in and around Portsmouth.

Other established and debut authors will also be with us on the Saturday. We'll keep you up to date.

Running concurrently during October is an intriguing and beautiful art exhibition in the Gallery at The Spring of the work of Betty Pepper. Her 'books' reveal the most wonderful surprises.

Our poetry competition opens this year on 1st May, We are delighted to announce that Naomi Foyle, renowned poet, author and playwright, has agreed to be the judge. You can download a copy of the entry form from the Competition Page.

Garden

And before all this you may be interested to read one of the stories written by a member of the Write On Group which meets at The Spring once a month, a talented bunch of budding authors led by Ray Cluley. See News Page.

With three successful festivals to our credit, as well as two events and a one day programme in 2010, we are surely fulfilling our aims!

The 2011 Havant Literary Festival was very well received with support from so many people, both those who bought tickets and our band of stewards. Our contributors also told us how much they enjoy coming to Havant for the special welcome they receive. Our enormous thanks to all of them and to the venues hosting this festival which included The Spring, St Faith's Church and the United Reformed Church Meeting Place.

As in previous years both well-known and new authors came to share their writing, or conducted writing and publishing workshops. We also widened our brief to include a session on designing for the stage and an insight into film production, with a showing of 'Africa United'. Many people had a 'ride' on our Time Machine in The Meridian Centre highlighting H G Wells' work, which was explored in a visit to Uppark House. We collaborated with St Faith's Church to bring a celebration of the King James Bible to Havant and Wordsouth gave us poetry events and supported our poetry competition. Our young people were catered for with a schools' programme which included three authors visiting six different schools, a separate writing workshop and two storytelling sessions.

The final good news of this festival came in our survey of audience opinion of events; 70% plus judged them excellent and over 20% good.

To see photos, a full feedback chart and to read some of our Timetravellers' wishes, go to the events page. Also see the news page for the latest goings on.

And so to the future. Although the Festival is a biennial event, we are already planning, at least, a one-day event in October 2012. Watch this space!

Once again, thank you, and wishing you all a happy and successful 2012, with time to enjoy all things literary.