Booker Prize-Listed author coming to teach at Barnstaple Library

Author Yvvette Edwards is coming to Barnstaple Library to support aspiring North Devon writers.

Yvvette’s first novel A Cupboard Full of Coats was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2011. It’s a family drama set over a weekend in East London and rich with voices from the West Indies.

She’ll be hosting the creative writing workshop on Thursday, September 21, at 2pm. After that Yvvette will be In Conversation at 6pm with Natasha Vigille from Barnstaple-based Afrocentric retail store Black Wall Street London.

Jane Petch, Senior Supervisor at Barnstaple Library, said: “Welcoming an author of Yvvette Edwards’ calibre to Barnstaple is extremely exciting for us. We’re delighted Yvvette won’t just be talking about her work, but supporting local writers in theirs. We’re also really pleased that Natasha will be taking part and doing what promises to be an entertaining and thought-provoking interview with Yvvette.”

The writer’s visit to Barnstaple is part of a tour of diverse authors and creative practitioners to 20 libraries across the South West of England.

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the tour is organised by South Western Regional Library Services CIO (SWRLS) in partnership with South West literature development agency, Literature Works.

The 20 libraries on the tour include public, university, college, school and NHS hospital libraries, and they’ll be hosting a wide variety of novelists, poets, playwrights and spoken word artists drawn from different backgrounds and cultures, both resident in the South West and new to the area.

Each library has chosen the audience it most wants to reach, ranging from refugees and new arrivals, to young adults, to LGBTQ+, to neuro-divergent members of the local community as well as a broad and general public.

Phil Gibby, Arts Council England, South West, Area Director, commented: “As the national development agency for culture and creativity, we strive to ensure that every person has access to the remarkable creativity and culture on their doorsteps. This collaboration between South Western Regional Library Services and regularly funded organisation, Literature Works, helps us to achieve that mission.”

Further events in this programme will be hosted by Libraries Unlimited at Paignton and Exeter later this year.

Tickets available to book: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/south-western-regional-library-services-cio