The Essex Book Festival is a literary festival that has been held across the county of Essex, United Kingdom, annually since March 1999. The festival aims to provide an opportunity for writers and the public to meet. The festival has been the host of numerous authors of international acclaim [1] but is mainly focused on local and British writers and critics. The events of the festival are generally held in libraries, theatres and schools or colleges and span the month of March.
The 2020 festival was directed by Ros Green with the theme Brave New World. [2]
Chelmsford is a city and the county town of Essex, in the East of England. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately 30 miles north-east of the notional centre of London at Charing Cross and 22 miles south-west of Colchester. The population is approximately 112,000 in the urban area, while the wider district has 168,310.
Southend-on-Sea, commonly referred to as Southend, is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, 40 miles (64 km) east of central London. It is bordered to the north by Rochford and to the west by Castle Point. It is home to the longest pleasure pier in the world, Southend Pier. London Southend Airport is located north of the city centre.
Harlow is a town and local government district in the west of Essex, England. Founded as a new town, it is situated on the border with Hertfordshire and London, Harlow occupies a large area of land on the south bank of the upper Stort Valley, which has been made navigable through other towns and features a canal section near its watermill. Old Harlow is a historic village founded by the early medieval age and most of its high street buildings are early Victorian and residential, mostly protected by one of the Conservation Areas in the district. In Old Harlow is a field named Harlowbury, a de-settled monastic area which has the remains of a chapel, a scheduled ancient monument.
Ben Okri is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions, and has been compared favourably to authors such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. In 1991, Okri won the Booker Prize with his novel The Famished Road.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) is a book festival that takes place in the last three weeks of August every year in Charlotte Square in the centre of Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh. Billed as The largest festival of its kind in the world, the festival hosts a concentrated flurry of cultural and political talks and debates, along with its well-established children's events programme.
Arthur Stanley Newens was a British Labour Co-operative politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1983, and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1984 to 1999.
World Book Day, also known as World Book and Copyright Day or International Day of the Book, is an annual event organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to promote reading, publishing, and copyright. The first World Book Day was celebrated on 23 April in 1995, and continues to be recognized on that day. A related event in the United Kingdom and Ireland is observed in March.
Arriva Shires & Essex is a bus operator providing services in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire, with services extending to Oxfordshire and Greater London. Until 2002 its operations included Colchester. It is a subsidiary of Arriva UK Bus.
The Rodings are a group of eight villages in the upper part of the River Roding and the west of Essex, England, the largest group in the country to bear a common name. The Rodings do not lie within a single district in the county; they are arranged around the tripoint of the administrative areas of Chelmsford, Uttlesford and Epping Forest. An alternative arcane name, linked to the Middle English Essex dialect, was The Roothings.
Caribbean literature is the literature of the various territories of the Caribbean region. Literature in English from the former British West Indies may be referred to as Anglo-Caribbean or, in historical contexts, as West Indian literature. Most of these territories have become independent nations since the 1960s, though some retain colonial ties to the United Kingdom. They share, apart from the English language, a number of political, cultural, and social ties which make it useful to consider their literary output in a single category. The more wide-ranging term "Caribbean literature" generally refers to the literature of all Caribbean territories regardless of language—whether written in English, Spanish, French, Hindustani, or Dutch, or one of numerous creoles.
The Hay Festival of Literature & Arts, better known as the Hay Festival, is an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales, for 10 days from May to June. Devised by Norman, Rhoda and Peter Florence in 1988, the festival was described by Bill Clinton in 2001 as "The Woodstock of the mind". Tony Benn said: "In my mind it's replaced Christmas".
Chloe Naomi Rogers is an English field hockey player midfield and forward and London 2012 Olympic bronze medal-winner. She made her senior international debut for the England women's national field hockey team in November 2003 versus Japan at Chelmer Park, Chelmsford, Essex. She holds a World Cup bronze, a Champions Trophy silver and bronze along with two Commonwealth Games bronze medals as well as European Championship bronzes. She is also one of the leading indoor hockey players in the UK.
Essex South West was a constituency of the European Parliament located in the United Kingdom, electing one Member of the European Parliament by the first-past-the-post electoral system. Created in 1979 for the first elections to the European Parliament, it was abolished in 1994 and succeeded by the constituencies of Essex West and Hertfordshire East and Essex South.
Essex West and Hertfordshire East was a constituency of the European Parliament located in the United Kingdom, electing one Member of the European Parliament by the first-past-the-post electoral system. Created in 1994 from parts of Hertfordshire and Essex South West, it was abolished in 1999 on the adoption of proportional representation for European elections in the United Kingdom. It was succeeded by the East of England region.
Epping is a market town and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of the County of Essex, England. The town is 17 miles (30 km) northeast from the centre of London, is surrounded by the northern end of Epping Forest, and on a ridge of land between the River Roding and River Lea valleys.
When God Was a Rabbit is a book by Sarah Winman that was first published in 2011. It won Winman various awards including New Writer of the Year in the Galaxy National Book Awards and was one of the books chosen by Richard & Judy in their 2011 Summer Book Club.
Essex is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Greater London to the south and south-west. The county town is Chelmsford, which is one of two cities in the county with the other being Southend-on-Sea which was granted city status on the 1st March 2022. For the purposes of government statistics, Essex is placed in the East of England region.

Harlow Jewish Community, a member of the Movement for Reform Judaism, is a Reform Jewish congregation whose synagogue is at Harberts Road, Harlow, in Essex, England. The congregation dates from 1952. Irit Shillor has been its Rabbi since 2005.
Máighréad Medbh is an Irish writer and poet.