The first Alt.Fiction Festival took place in 2006, attracting over 100 attendees in its first year. The festival has grown significantly since then, with people travelling from all over the UK to be a part of it. Alt.Fiction a national event that has become a regular feature on the literature calendar. Two attendees travelled from Canada in 2011!
In 2010 Writing East Midlands absorbed Alt.Fiction in to its portfolio, a natural fit for the region’s literature development agency, who work to support and promote writers. In 2010 and 2011 the festival took place at QUAD in Derby, presenting a mixture of panels, readings, workshops and podcasts, featuring leading authors, agents and editors.
In 2011, to celebrate Alt.Fiction’s fifth year, we ran the festival over two days, to huge success, and we’re delighted to be bringing it back for another fantastic weekend in April 2012. This time we’re moving to Leicester, and we’ve added some new elements to the programming that we’re really excited about.
The festival has always strived to be accessible to both genre fans and writers, while being a really welcoming space for newcomers to the scene.
We often have as many as 40 well known authors attending across the festival. Some of our guests over the years have included
Iain M Banks Ramsey Campbell
Alastair Reynolds Steven Erikson
Dan Abnett Tony Ballantyne
Graham Joyce Tim Lebbon
Mark Chadbourn Stephen Deas
Pete Crowther John Jarrold
Juliet McKenna Mark Morris
Adam Nevill Mark Charan Newton
Sarah Pinborough Robert Shearman
Adrian Tchaikovsky Conrad Williams
Chris Wooding among many others..
- posted on 05/05/2012 20:33:45