Hawkesbury Upton Literary Festival (HULF) was held in St Mary’s church at Hawkesbury Upton yesterday. Hawkesbury Upton is a village not far from here hidden in the rolling hills with quintessential country lanes and obligatory pot holes. One surprise was that the church is the burial place of one of our British Prime Ministers. About seventy people were there from all flightpaths of the universe.
The theme was the ‘Sense of Place’, when we were taken from ancient history, through modern history and modern times, on into the future. Naturally, my main interest was in the future aspects. Stephen Oram gave a very interesting talk about how place can shape the future we live in. Of course he mentioned that anthology (All Tomorrow’s Futures: Fictions That Disrupt) along the way. What I found particularly interesting is the fact that he is actively helping researchers investigate science issues by getting science fiction writers to interact with scientists – the writers add to the debate of the issues that ought to be covered when investigating various topics. I expect some interesting results to come out of his current ones in due course.
Another Bristol-based science fiction author, Tim Kindberg, who wrote the science fiction horror, Vampires of Avonmouth was also mentioned. Both from the point of view how place was important to his novel and the fact he contributed to that anthology mentioned above.
Mark Rutherford entertained us with a lovely science fiction story that had the audience absolutely enthralled. He calls himself a performance writer, which means he writes stories to deliver in performance on stage.
So far, so normal and what can be expected from such literary festival. The strange event (well, you don’t expect me to go anywhere new without something out of the ordinary happening do you?) happened at lunch time. I’d arranged to let them provide me with lunch (as I was too lazy to faff about getting it ready in advance) and ended up sitting opposite another science fiction writer. He has a self-published series of novels for the younger readers. He told me a lovely story how he had found a young artist to illustrate his book cover. She then went on to use that cover as part of her portfolio and is now studying at Plymouth University as a consequence.
This all goes to show that there is a very much a hidden interest in science fiction even in the oddest of corners in this country.
It is even more interesting that the science fiction writers I met do not follow the accepted themes that you can buy in the book stores and the like. It is as if there is an immense underground of science fiction talent bubbling and seething away waiting to burst onto the universe’s stage.
Rosie Oliver 