York Festival of Writing

Exciting! Glad to hear I won't be alone! I'll be flying from Savannah, GA to attend. Looking forward to meeting up.

I’m coming, also on my own. I’m on my way down from Scotland to Sussex and stopping on the way for the festival. I’m really looking forward to it but like you I think it is quite scary. 

I’m coming too! It will be my first, but I guess a lot of us will be in the same boat. 

Would love to attend, it, but sadly it's financially well out of my reach. Have a great time everyone who is going. I'm sure it'll be a wonderful occasion.  

I'm going! Can't wait! I thought about it long and hard as I don't have much money and I was worried it was too expensive. In fact I thought so long about it, I missed the early bird deadline by a day so had to pay more! Jericho were very kind when I wrote to them and pleaded for a discount, they gave me a little money back! 

I used to live in York so I'm looking forward to going back, but particularly excited about the festival itself. Am so close to the end of a massive re-write and edit of my first novel after some good feedback from a couple of agents, so am looking on this as the perfect place and time to get it in front of some agents and anyone else I can find!

I'll definitely enter Friday night live, but I'm under no illusion that the chances of getting into the final must be pretty slim! 500 words is such a small amount. It feels almost worth doing a special FNL edit of chapter one abridged just to pack enough of a punch. I'm guessing everyone does that no?

I'll also be on my own! What a lot of nervous writers we will be!

I wish I could - You won't be alone though, before I joined I met a lot of writers who attend. In fact, their enthusiasm encouraged me to join JW. I will be in Yorkshire in July, my summer holiday planning was already done before I knew of JW and the York festival. I do have a strong emotional bond with York university though and it feels like I 'should' go anyway ... however, I live and work on the other side of the channel, so I think I will wait til next year. You will love it and meet so many lovey and inspiring people. Tell me all about it, please ;) Greetings, Anette 

Hi everyone. Can anyone help me? I don't know if any forms have been sent yet for us to sign up to events at York or agent 1-2-1's.

I haven't received anything yet, no, so I suppose they are still open for people to sign up. How many people do you think there willl be at the festival?

I’m attending and looking forward to meeting you all! It will be my first festival. 👍

I'll be there. It will be my eleventh York festival. I went to the first one in 2010 and just kept on going. I guess you could call me an addict. Excited to be be back at a live festival for the first time since 2019!

Hi everybody. I went to York in 2019. It was amazing. I learned so much. Question: Is anybody else having trouble signing up for the sessions, etc they want to do? I had the email and used the link but I just seem to go round and round the same screens. I have had a lot of trouble with my login in the past but not sure if it's that again or just me being stupid!! I am not very technically minded.

I am in 2 minds about Friday Night Live. I am writing a memoir so not sure whether that could even be interesting enough to be considered!!

About Friday Night entries  - as I have just had my manuscript assessed and am working on it now to get it ready for submission, can I also use the first 500 words of my next book? I wrote the first chapter some weeks ago and think it would make a good entry. Or does it have to be from a finished manuscript? 

I'm sure Anna will correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think they insist it has to be from a finished manuscript.  If you enter it, get chosen for the final, then receive loads of agent interest, THEN you have your problem of an unfinished book, but what a WONDERFUL  problem that would be!

Hello! I'll be coming down from Scotland as well, on my own. But via Liverpool for the week before, so I'll be the one who's looking a bit tired and dishevelled 😂 Don't know anyone so will also probably look a bit lost and lonely...