Lara Maiklem speaks to Sophie Haydock about her latest book A Mudlarking Year: Finding Treasure in Every Season – the follow-up to the award-winning bestseller Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames. Discover the stories of everyday items lost in our riverbanks.  

Guided by a mythical Apothecary, come and explore how the power of nature and storytelling can bring hope in the desert of illness. Inspired by Derek Jarman’s ‘garden without boundaries’ and the ecology of Dungeness, Alexandra Le Rossignol’s workshop will provide space to play with words and images. No experience needed, materials provided.

Drawing on her own experience of adapting to life with chronic fatigue following a stroke in 2019, poet Sarah Bowman’s practical workshop explores how the reading and particularly the writing of poetry  move us out of emotional numbness and into a new sense of acceptance, agency and selfhood. 

A panel discussion about queer women’s writing and stories hosted by Margate’s own award-winning comedian, podcaster and author Rosie Wilby. Rosie is joined by Diva magazine editor Roxy Bourdillon and Polari First Book Prize winner Nicola Dinan.  

Chris Plato guides you through puns, adages and idioms, and their use and abuse in the written and visual worlds. He lifts the veil to reveal how writers, artists and wordsmiths have constructed, construed and conveyed this wordplay through the generations. 

Put your literary knowledge to the test for the chance for your team to become the first ever Margate Bookie quiz champions. There will be prizes. It will be fun. And someone will take that crown (there will be no actual crown). Maximum six people per team.