StoryTown Corsham
Led by Corsham Town Council in collaboration with Paper Nations, StoryTown is a year-round programme of writing events culminating in a weekend-long festival. The festival has run since 2018.
The StoryTown 2020 Programme is here! Our third festival is largely a virtual event and as usual boasts a fantastic array of workshops, talks, and activities for writers and creatives of all ages and disciplines. If you love writing, or are intrigued to start telling a story - look no further. Oh, and did we mention that all events are entirely FREE?
The Festival’s History
The 2018 StoryTown Festival included fantastic authors such as Hollie McNish, Sharon Tregenza, Chris Vick, and Laura James. Workshops were available for the whole family on everything from illustration to slams, poetry to stories, and everything in between.
The StoryTown Festival returned to Corsham in 2019 with another fantastic line-up of over 30 events, talks, workshops, and experiences to get whole communities and families writing. These included: school writing competitions, intergenerational story-telling sessions, creative writing workshops, poetry readings, author talks, book fairs, children’s events, family activities, recording Your Corsham Stories on video and postcards, theatre performances, literary quotes in shop windows, exhibitions, film screenings and more.
“Corsham Town Council’s Strategic Plan has long included requirement for a literary event, but we were determined to make it more than a gathering of authors reading their latest works. Having many resident professional writers and the creative writing courses at the Bath Spa campus in Corsham Court gave us the opportunity to do something truly creative and community centred. We called it Corsham StoryTown.
StoryTown could not be a one-off, or even a once-a-year event. It had to become a brand for the town that would inspire the entire community and attract visitors. The creative, organizational and financial support of Bath Spa, Paper Nations and Dare To Write has made that possible, and the input of the Pound Arts Centre, Springfield Library, Corsham Institute, all the schools, the Town Hall, local retailers, Red Forge Studios and interest groups has imbued it with true community spirit.
To have created over 30 events over one week, involving everyone from toddlers to our eldest residents has been a real achievement, but Corsham aims high and we have even greater plans for the future.”
Co-produced by Paper Nations with support from Arts Council England and Bath Spa University. Thanks to the Corsham team: Pound Arts, Wiltshire Council, The Corsham Bookshop, MakeBelieve Arts, Peahen Publishing, The John Parker Gallery, and Camomile Cafe.