The du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival 2026
***Important news***
Due to circumstances beyond their control, the dates of The du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival 2026 will be slightly different.
Routinely, the festival has always been in the week including Daphne du Maurier’s birthday on 13th May.
In 2026, the festival dates will be one week earlier than usual, and so will be from Friday 1st until Saturday 9th May 2026.
Please make a note of this in your diaries and book your accomodation early, as the new dates include a bank holiday, which is likely to mean that there will be more people in Fowey that usual during Festval week.
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The du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival 2025 begins today, Friday 9th May
The du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival 2025, beginning this evening with music from Mad Dog Mcrea in the Parish Church at 8pm.
From Saturday 10th May, there will be a full day of events every day until Saturday 17th May. Events will include walks, reading groups, talks, music, a quiz, and much more. During the week, the Fowey Art Trail will take place from Saturday 10th to Saturday 17th May 2025 and the Secret Gardens, on Friday 16th and Saturday 17th May 2025.
The Royal Fowey Yacht Club will be open for coffee and cake, teas, light snacks and meals. At the Yacht Club, you will also find the Waterstones Festival Bookshop and the Festival Box Office, where you can buy your tickets and ask any questions that you may have.
There will also be a sale of second-hand books, some of which are very hard to find and some that are really rather special. The book sale will be beside the Box Office in the Yacht Club. There are some lovely editions of Daphne du Maurier’s books, and some beautiful books about Fowey and Cornwall. Do go along and have a look, as there is bound to be something that you would like to buy for yourself or as a present for someone else.
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The du
Maurier Fowey Literary Festival Secret Gardens – Friday 16th and
Saturday 17th May 2025
We
are delighted to say that Secret Gardens is returning to the du Maurier Fowey
Literary Festival once more. This year,
the gardens will be open on Friday 16th and Saturday 17th May, and you will be
able to visit your favourite gardens in Fowey, Polruan and Bodinnick.
Opera in the Garden also returns at Porphyry Hall Garden.
For more information and to download the Secret Gardens map and the Secret Gardens listings, please click here: https://www.foweyfestival.com/secret-gardens/
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Fowey Art Trail Saturday 10th – Saturday 17th May 2025
Each May, the Fowey Art Trail takes place in conjunction with the du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival. This year it begins on Saturday 10th May and runs until Saturday 17th May.
Fowey Art Trail showcases local artists who open up their homes or their studios and welcome residents and visitors to the town into their workspace.
This year brings new artists alongside the familiar. White Doll Arts, in Passage Street, and CREATE, in Lostwithiel Street, join the trail for the first time.
Among the venues where you will find outstanding artists showing and selling their work are the Royal British Legion, Mission for Seafarers, and St John’s Church, which is across the water at Bodinnick, accessed by the car ferry at Caffa Mill (the car ferry takes foot passengers).
Those of you walking the route will enjoy a journey of discovery, taking in 23 exhibitions in 13 locations around Fowey, Bodinnick and Polruan.
This year, the Fowey Art Club makes a welcome return, hosted by Gallants Sailing Club, and students from Fowey River Academy join in again, displaying inspiring new work at the Mission for Seafarers.
A brochure mapping out the Art Trail venues will be available in shops and at venues to guide you around the trail. Or, go to the ‘Fowey Art Trail’ pages on Facebook and Instagram to preview a selection of the artwork.
You will find further details here https://www.foweyfestival.com.
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The du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival 9th – 17th May 2025 Programme and Booking Office
Now Live Online
Sir Michael Morpurgo * Kate Williams * Sir Graham Brady * Dr Tessa Dunlop * Iain Dale
Joanne Harris * John Suchet * Alison Weir * Alan Johnson
The du Maurier Fowey Festival takes place from 9th – 17th May 2025. The programme is now live on the Fowey Festival website. The box office is open to Friends of the Festival now and will be open to everyone from 9am on Friday, 21st March.
Click here to link to the programme and to book tickets: https://www.foweyfestival.com
If you would like to become a Friend of Fowey festival and benefit from priority booking ahead of public booking, discounted tickets, priority seating at events, priority invitations to one-off events throughout the year, and much more, please click here https://www.foweyfestival.com/friends/
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How to Become a Friend of the du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival
The du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival 2025 takes place from 9th – 17th May. Tickets for the lineup of festival events will be on sale from mid-March.
If you would like to become a Friend, you will be able to enjoy a number of benefits at this year’s Festival.
There are two choices of membership:
Bronze Friend - £30 per year
• 5% discount on tickets purchased for events organised by the Festival and held in the membership year starting 1st June, 2024, expiring 31st May, 2025. Maximum discounted tickets: 2 per event
• Priority booking ahead of public booking.
• Priority seating where available.
• Advance notice of programme content.
• Regular e-newsletters throughout the year.
• Priority invitations to one-off events throughout the year.
Bronze Friends memberships are annual subscriptions that will auto-renew each year by default. If you prefer not to auto-renew, you can deactivate this function in your Friends membership account settings.
Silver Friend - £60 per year
• 10% discount on tickets purchased for events organised by the Festival and held in the membership year starting 1st June, 2024, expiring 31st May, 2025. Maximum discounted tickets: 2 per event
• Priority booking ahead of public booking
• Priority seating where available
• Advance notice of programme content
• Regular e-newsletters throughout the year.
• Priority invitations to one-off events throughout the year.
Silver Friends memberships are annual subscriptions that will auto-renew each year by default. If you prefer not to auto-renew, you can deactivate this function in your Friends membership account settings.
It couldn’t be easier. All you need to do is to go to the festival website here: https://www.foweyfestival.com/friends/
Becoming a Friend is a great way to support the Festival.
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The du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival Adult Short Story Competition 2025
We are delighted to announce that, once again, the du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival will be running its Adult Short Story Competition. The chosen title for this year is Making Waves. They look forward to hearing from all budding authors who can let their creative minds wander, resulting in wonderful, intriguing, and engaging short stories.
Entries must be your own work, with a maximum of 1,500 words. It must include the title, but the interpretation is entirely up to you.
The competition is open to all those over 16 years of age. Entry costs £10 per story. There will be a first prize of £200 and a second prize of £100.
All entries must be received by noon on 28th March 2025.
Winners will be announced in time for a prize giving to be held at the Festival in May.
For the rules and entry form, please click here https://www.foweyfestival.com/competitions-and-awards/short-story-competition-for-adults/
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The Du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival Competition for Young Writers and Artists 2025
The Du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival has announced its competition for Young Writers and Artists 2025. The competition has four categories: fictional writing, factual writing, poetry, and art.
This year, the theme is Making Waves.
The competition opens on Monday 13th January 2025 and can be entered by all children aged between 4 and 16 living in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
The closing date will be 5th March 2025.
There will be a celebration and awards event during the summer term when prizes and certificates will be presented for the best entries in all categories and all age groups.
For additional information, rules and entry forms, please go to https://www.foweyfestival.com. The information about the competition will also be sent to schools via School Communications.
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Exciting News From Fowey Festival – November 2024
We have exciting news from the Fowey Festival. Here is the statement that they have shared with us all this week -
We are thrilled to announce two new Festival Patrons and to unveil our new logo.
The new Patrons are Christian Browning – Film Director and Photographer, son of Daphne du Maurier and Iain Dale - British broadcaster, author, political commentator and former publisher and book retailer.
We look forward to working with Christian and Iain and welcome their support in assisting us to deliver our mission to promote the joy of literature and the arts, through our Festival and school outreach programme.
Christian Browning
We are honoured that Christian Browning, Film Director and Photographer, son of Daphne du Maurier and advocate of the work we do, joins us as Patron. His guidance over the years has been invaluable, and we are delighted to have his continued support.
Iain Dale
We are thrilled to announce that British Broadcaster, Author, Political Commentator and former publisher and book retailer, Iain Dale, has been appointed as a Patron of the Festival. Iain is no stranger to the Festival having first attended over 20 years ago, when he interviewed Ann Widdecombe. This year, he returned to talk about his bestselling book, Kings and Queens, conducted author interviews and entertained a captive audience with a live recording of his highly acclaimed podcast, For the Many. Iain’s support and enthusiasm for the festival is infectious, and it is a privilege to have him on board.
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A Brief History of Our Literary Festival in Fowey
The first festival programme
A literary festival has taken place in Fowey for many years, the first being The Daphne du Maurier Festival of Arts and Literature in May 1997. This was a community initiative which had the full support of the du Maurier Browning family and was timed to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Daphne's birth.
From then on it became a tradition that 13th May, Daphne's birthday, would always be included within the dates of the festival.
That first festival provided the pattern for the future, with du Maurier-related walks, exhibitions, talks, plays and music events. There was a national one-day conference on the subject of Daphne du Maurier and the Romance of Place, with speakers including Avril Horner, Sue Zlosnik and Helen Taylor.
The conference was repeated on a much bigger scale in 2007 to celebrate Daphne du Maurier's centenary when a three-day international conference was held and concluded with a visit to Ferryside for all the delegates.
Over the years that followed, the Daphne du Maurier Festival of Arts and Literature grew under the direction of a small team of people from Restormel Borough Council led by Jonathan Aberdeen. The centrepiece of the festival was a beautiful festival village built on land belonging to Fowey Community College just beyond Fowey Hall Hotel.
When the festival in Fowey began, it was a rare and special event that thrived through the good years of the 2000s. But, as the decade drew to a close, a vast range of literary festivals all over the country gave people a greater choice of venue, and politics and the recession began to play their part in what was to become quite a struggle for survival.
With the inception of a unitary authority in the county, Cornwall Council could no longer justify supporting the du Maurier Festival in isolation; funding was reduced and shortly after ceased. However, a local group of enthusiastic people got together, incorporated the concept of the festival into a charity, and the Fowey Festival of Words and Music was born.
The festival became an altogether smaller event, located in various venues around the town, and, despite misgivings from many people, both local and visitors, has proved in the last few years to be very successful and financially sound.
Despite two years when the festival had to be cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival continued to grow in strength and content under the direction of Brenda Daly and its board of trustees. It is enjoyed by all who come.
The formula continued to be one of walks, exhibitions, talks, workshops, and music events, but now it also includes an Art Trail, which gives local artists the opportunity to open their homes and studios to show and sell their work. Another popular addition is the Secret Gardens Programme, through which local people open their gardens to festival goers.
The festival also always makes a point of focusing on children through its school outreach programme.
In 2016, the name of the festival was tweaked slightly to reflect more accurately what the festival did and became the Fowey Festival of Arts and Literature.
In November 2024, the festival announced that there were to be two new Festival Patrons and a new logo, naming the festival The du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival. The new Patrons are Christian Browning – Film Director and Photographer, son of Daphne du Maurier and Iain Dale - British broadcaster, author, political commentator and former publisher and book retailer.
We can now confirm that the dates of the next Fowey Literary Festival are 1st - 9th May 2026. We will bring you news of what you can look forward to and link you with the festival website so that you can be completely up to date with all festival news.