Winchester Writers' Festival taken over by I AM in Print

The Winchester Writers’ Festival and Writers’ Weekend has been taken over by I AM in Print and will now be known as the I AM Writing Festival. 

The event will still take place at the University of Winchester. Online sessions will run from 4th to 8th June, while in-person events take place from 10th to 12th June. Headline speakers include Joanna Cannon, Juliet Mushens and Adele Parks. 

Former festival director Sara Gangai stepped down last year to focus on a new business, passing the festival on to Sarah Post and Elane Retford of I AM in Print at the beginning of this year.  

The pair were regular attendees of the Winchester Writers’ Festival and set up I AM in Print three years ago to bring published and unpublished authors together with agents. During lockdown they hosted free online talks with book-touring authors including Women’s Prize-winner Maggie O’Farrell as well as events on how to get published.  

Their programme for the new I AM Writing Festival will feature more than 50 workshops and talks, covering everything a writer needs to know about improving their writing and how to get published. There are also sessions on social media for authors, podcasting, songwriting, self-editing and how to write for TV. 

Post and Retford said a major focus of the festival is how to find an agent, and confirmed The Bright Agency, Bell Lomax Moreton, Blake Friedmann, Peter Fraser Dunlop, Curtis Brown, Darley Anderson, Marjacq, Kate Nash Literary Agency and United Agents will be available to provide feedback on submission packages for those writers ready to seek representation. HarperCollins, Bookouture, Jo Fletcher Books and Little Tiger Press are also offering publishing insight as part of the programme.  

Retford said: “We are very honoured to bring this popular, well-loved festival back to Winchester. Our aim is to inspire every writer who joins us and continue the legacy carefully left to us by Sara Gangai, and her former colleagues Judith Heneghan and Barbara Large who have kept this festival alive for four decades. We hope our line-up reflects the choice and supportive atmosphere that writers have come to know and love.” 

More information can be found at www.iaminprint.co.uk.