Ali Smith and Fay Weldon to appear at Women’s Word festival

Inaugural year for Lucy Cavendish summer festival

6 May 2009

Ali Smith, Fay Weldon and Helena Kennedy are among the speakers to appear at the first Women's Word festival at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge taking place from 13 - 28 June 2009.

Ali Smith has been twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize - in 2001 with her novel Hotel World and in 2005 with The Accidental. For the Women's Word festival she will be introducing the innovative 1930s German film Maidens in Uniform.

Fay Weldon was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1979 with her novel Praxis. She was also Chair of the Booker Prize in 1983. The infamous novelist, playwright and screenwriter will help open the festival on Saturday 13 June and will be interviewed by William Nicholson.

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, one of the Trustees of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, will also be speaking during the festival, and Ruth Scurr, who was on the judging of the Man Booker Prize in 2007, also features in the programme.   

Other highlights in the programme include Fiona Shaw who will be speaking about her new novel Tell it to the Bees, published by Tindal Street Press. It is the latest novel from the publishers of Gaynor Arnold's Girl in a Blue Dress (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008), Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007) and Clare Morrall's Astonishing Splashes of Colour (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003.

Carol Ann Duffy, who has just been named Poet Laureate, will be speaking on Thursday 25 June - one of her first public appearances in the new role.

Women's Word will take place annually from 2009 and audiences from Cambridge and beyond will have the opportunity to visit Lucy Cavendish College to hear what different women have to say and how they say it; they will share the experiences, language and inspiration of women who are finding exciting, imaginative ways to put their lives and ideas into words.

To view the full programme please visit the Women's Word website. 

To be added to the Women's Word mailing list and receive details of the timetable and events please send an email to womensword@lucy-cav.cam.ac.uk

The Man Booker Prize Fiction at its finest