St Dunstan’s College Sponsors Catford Literary Festival

St Dunstan’s College, Catford, south London is delighted to be sponsoring the first-ever Catford Literary Festival.

The inaugural Catford Literary Festival will take place in early October and host 15 authors across two days at Abbotshall HLC in Catford.

Speaking about the Festival, St Dunstan’s Head, Nick Hewlett said: ‘We are delighted to be sponsoring the first ever Catford Literary Festival, which promises to be a vibrant and engaging event for the local community. St Dunstan’s College is committed to working with local partners to provide life-enhancing opportunities to local people that help improve communities.’

Natasha Clarkson, Abbotshall’s Centre and Partnership Director, said: ‘We’re really excited to bring a new book festival to south-east London and to highlight literature in Catford. We really want to showcase the diverse literary talent that the area has to offer and have been inundated with local authors wanting to take part.’

Authors who have signed up to this year’s festival include Jimi Famurewa, Rebecca Seal and Brenda Garrick.

Jimi Famurewa the restaurant critic for the Evening Standard, who will be talking on the Saturday about his forthcoming book, ‘Settlers: Journeys Through the Food, Faith and Culture of Black African London’. Rebecca Seal, who lives in Forest Hill and has been a writer for 18 years, will be talking on the Sunday about ‘SOLO: How to Work Alone (and Not Lose Your Mind)’. Seal is an award-winning writer and also runs a local photography studio, Kemble House. She has written ten books, and her journalism is published worldwide in broadsheet newspapers and magazines. 

Brenda Garrick will also be appearing on the Sunday when she will be reading from Jamakespeare. Containing re-imaginings of Shakespeares’s soliloquies and monologues that incorporate Jamaican Patois, her book is an inventive and engrossing take on the Bard’s classic works. The event is ideal for young readers and Jamakespeare makes Shakespeare fresh and new and is a compelling take on canonical texts.

Other highlights over the weekend include local writer Niamh Mulvey, who will head up a panel event featuring debut authors, and there will be a food writing event featuring well-known names from the world of food and drink including Helen Graves, who has lived in south-east London for many years and writes the well-loved blog ‘Food Stories’.

St Dunstan’s, which was recently named Independent Senior School of the Year at the Tes Awards, is passionate about and dedicated to providing life-enriching opportunities to our local community. 

Head Nick Hewlett added: ‘We realise that we hold a privileged position as an independent school both in terms of our facilities and the experiences of our staff and pupils. It is vitally important for us that this can be of benefit to, and enhanced by, the communities that extend beyond our college gates. As one of the only independent schools in Lewisham, we believe in a broader educational purpose that supports the ongoing aspirations for the betterment of the borough and its residents.’

The College aims to routinely work with local partners to provide empowering opportunities to local people that will promote social mobility, engender wellbeing, and improve communities in additional to responding with benevolence and charity.

All of the Catford Literary Festival events will have free tickets available. Guests can make a donation to support the ongoing work of Abbotshall. 

Tickets are available here: The Catford Literary Festival Events | Eventbrite

See St Dunstan’s online listing here.