Festival for Readers and Writers shines a light on Virginia Woolf

'To the Lighthouse', a fortnight festival of events celebrating the life and writing of Virginia Woolf, was held in Cambridge this autumn, with activities ranging from workshops and discussions for readers and writers to film screenings, walking tours, play performances and lectures by distinguished authors and scholars. Claire Nicholson, part-time lecturer and PhD student, represented Anglia Ruskin on the Festival Steering Group and played a prominent part in some of the events.

"The festival was devised to re-introduce Woolf to the general reader, as she is so often perceived as belonging to academia." said Claire. "We invited Book Groups across Cambridgeshire to join us in reading To the Lighthouse, one of Woolf's best-known novels. Our festival website offered the opportunity to participate in an online discussion about the book, and we were very pleased with the enthusiastic response.

The festival posed a Writing Challenge competition to school and college students, based on the theme of 'A Space of My Own', which also attracted an excellent response. "The Festival Committee were highly impressed with the entries, many of which were very articulate, moving and poignant pieces of writing" commented Claire. The prizes for the competition winners were awarded by the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, a major supporter of the festival, who concluded the series of events with a reading from her new collection The Bees at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Other eminent literary figures making contributions included Dame Gillian Beer and biographer Frances Spalding, who launched the festival with a joint lecture on the interplay between art and literature in Woolf's era, and novelist Ali Smith who talked about 'Spirals of Influence', naming Woolf as one of her own key influences. Robinson College hosted two performances of Vanessa and Virginia, a play about the relationship between Woolf and her artist sister, Vanessa Bell. The play is a stage adaptation of the acclaimed novel of the same name by another member of the Festival Steering Group, Susan Sellers.

One of the highlights of the festival was a walking tour devised by Claire Nicholson, based upon Woolf's connections with Cambridge in her acclaimed feminist text of 1929, A Room of One's Own. Claire escorted groups to the Fitzwilliam Museum where Woolf's original manuscript of the text was on display, then to King's College to visit the venue for a famous lunch party which Woolf attended and subsequently described in the book, and concluded the tour at Newnham College where Woolf gave the lecture in 1928 which eventually evolved into A Room of One's Own.

"It was a great privilege to stand in the place where Woolf had spoken so many years before, reading her words from this landmark text" said Claire. "It was a moving experience for me." Claire also gave a lecture on the Bloomsbury Group in the idyllic surroundings of the Orchard Tea Gardens at Grantchester. "I am very proud to have had the opportunity to play a part in such a successful festival" she said.

For more information please email Claire Nicholson.

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