BilliLit 2025
It’s Monday morning and I’m still riding on the high that was BilliLit 2025.
I’m one of the co-founders of BilliLit, along with Julia Jepps, and Billingshurst’s book festival is now in its second year. What I think is unique about BilliLit, in comparison to other local festivals, is that everything takes place in one space, the Women’s Hall. We have a pop-up book shop courtesty of Petworth Book Shop. Book-lovers are encouraged to stay all day on Saturday to enjoy books, cake, authors, chat, and perhaps a glass of wine. And this year, just like last year, we were blessed with sunshine.
Simon Zec & Ted Gooda beneath the BilliLit book arch
On Friday 25th April, we began the school side of the festival, collecting the entries for our young writers’ poetry competition from Billingshurst Primary School, and the wonderful Sara Starbuck worked with some KS2 pupils on creating characters in their writing. We held our open mic night for local poets in the evening.
Our Super Saturday authors’ day, led by Si Zec, author of three volumes of poetry and poetry editor of The Real Press, offered a packed programme.
First up was local writer John Upton discussing his just-published novel, The Dead Dad’s Club. He was followed by Steve Sheppard, who describes his work as ‘spy thrillers with laughs’ and his writing approach as ‘making it up as you go along’. He spoke about his three novels published by Claret Press and, perhaps giving hope to all of us, shared that he was 66 when his first book was published.
Next came Dee Blick, so brave, honest and inspiring in sharing her pathway from addict to author.
Ted Gooda & Abi Smith
What an honour it was to then have the opportunity to interview my fellow ghostwriter Abi Smith, author or ghost-writer of 20 published books on the world of sport, celebrity and lifestyle. We had quite the giggle spilling the tea on all things ghostwriting, but what was said on stage stays there!
After lunch came a shift in tone and genre with a move to history, specifically some of the untold history of World War II, as we welcomed Captain Iain Miskimmin, a reservist in the Royal Engineers whose book Not a Foot Back tells the story of the men of the Royal Scots Fusiliers during the dark days of May 1940 that led to the evacuation of the BEF at Dunkirk.
He was followed by Eleanor Anstruther, whose latest book, The Judgement of Others, is set amidst the members of the Midhurst Amateur Dramatic Society as they put on a production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, which also happens to be Billingshurst Dramatic Society’s Autumn play this year! Eleanor spoke about fiction and memoir, and the influence of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and ‘morning pages’, writing practices I also swear by.
I then had the privilege of interviewing my dear friend and writing partner, Louise Allen, a Sunday Times Bestselling author, an artist and a passionate campaigner for children in the care system.
Ted Gooda & Louise Allen
Our penultimate author was Peter Gladwin with An English Vineyard Cookbook with a real treat: not just stories from his Nutbourne Vineyard, the Sussex countryside, seasonal cooking, local wine making & farming, and art, but also a tutored, interactive wine tasting!
Super Saturday closed with Lesley Hart from Author’s Pen and Horsham Writer’s Circle to announce the winner of BilliLit’s Flash Fiction competition.
On Saturday night we had the first of two one-act theatrical performances: the premiere of Mannequim, co-written by Lexy Medwell and me, performed by Oaks and Pines Theatre Company. Mannequim deals with gender issues, specifically the question of what it means to be a woman and, given the recent Supreme Court ruling on the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ and what that means for trans women, it couldn’t have been more timely.
On Sunday, we had a full day of sell-out workshops covering structuring a novel, getting published and marketing your book. The marvellous Daisy White and Lisa Brace of Blue Pier Creative started the morning, with Sara Starbuck and Dee Blick returning to share their expertise. It was a wonderful meeting of minds, with some participants attending all three workshops!
Fittingly, the final event of BilliLit 2025 was the second one-act theatrical performance of the festival, My Second Best Bed by Horsham theatre company Lights & Bushels, a tale that explores relationships in Shakespeare’s life. It was moving, powerful and poignant: a beautiful end to the festival.
It was just about 3 years ago that Julia and I met for lunch in Billy’s on the Road and sketched out our ideas for a local literary festival. I’d like to say it was scribbled on the back of an envelope but, being literary types, we both had very nice notebooks. We wanted to celebrate local literary talent as well as providing a meeting place for like-minded souls. We wanted to contribute to the cultural life of the village where we have both been privileged to live for many years. We wanted to offer workshops for writers of all levels and we wanted local authors to have the opportunity to promote their work, and we wanted to pay them. To try and make a living through writing alone is pretty tough. In an age where we are competing with the smart phone and contending with AI, the printed word is more precious than ever.
I’m so grateful to anyone who has supported our endeavours for the first two year’s of BilliLit. And Julia and I are just about to sit down and plan BilliLit 2026!