Our News
Alderney - a Hotspot for Crime in June
Saturday, 10 June 2023
Hard on the heels of its most successful Literary Festival ever, in June 2023 the tiny island of Alderney is hosting a unique one-day festival exploring the ‘Anatomy of a Crime Thriller’.
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Organised by The Alderney Literary Trust and sponsored by Ravenscroft, best-selling authors Kate Rhodes, Elly Griffiths and Jane Casey will talk about their latest books and the crucial ingredients of their gripping stories.
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The mini festival will take place on Saturday, June 10th in the Island’s Methodist Church, with three hour-long sessions in which the authors will reveal the inspiration for their atmospheric settings, complex characters and twisty plots.
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Kate Rhodes is also offering a ‘Starting to Write Crime Fiction’ workshop on the Saturday morning at nearby La Frette Farm. The course is limited to 20 people. All talks and the writing course are free to 16-year-olds and under.
For more info, visit our Anatomy of a Crime Thriller page.
Sell-out Alderney Literary Festival ‘up there with the best’
March 2023
The Alderney Literary Festival on the weekend was a tremendous success!
A total audience of around 650 booklovers attended 15 events during the three-day Festival (March 17-19) with all talks, panel discussions and fringe events a sell-out. Festival Chairman Anthony Riches, a leading historical fiction author and committee member of the Historical Writers Association, said:
“This year’s festival has been right up there with the best of them..Not only has this festival been a masterfully curated mixture of periods and perspectives, but the organisation has also been superb and the generosity of our sponsors, especially the Festival sponsor Polygon Collective, has enabled us to bring more authors than ever before to this endearing and highly enjoyable event. Ask any of the authors who have spoken at the Festival in the past and they would all agree to come back in a heartbeat, which is testimony to just how special an experience the Alderney Literary Trust has created.”
Polygon Collective’s Henry Mowbray commented:
“We are delighted to have sponsored the prestigious Alderney Literary Festival. The event’s popularity within Alderney and further afield continues to grow and we’re grateful for the opportunity to support it.”
Individual author sponsors included Alderney Electricity Ltd (AEL), Julius Bär, AY Enterprise Trust, Liberation Pubs & Bars, Savills, Stenham Trustees, HSBC, Nigel Meyer & Susan Smyth, and Gower Financial Services. Paul McCormick, Associate Director, Gower Financial Services, said:
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"Gower was delighted to be involved in another successful Alderney Literary Festival again this year. The Anne French room was packed with locals and visitors for our authors talk by Andrew Taylor and it was great to see the island busy with visitors across the weekend. This event continues to attract good numbers and it can only be positive for the island to have a growing, popular event early in the season.”
Established and debut authors taking part have all returned home with high praise for a warm welcome to the island’s relaxed and generous atmosphere and a community with a taste for great historical writing and the arts in general.
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Watch short interviews with the Organisers, authors, a festivall-goer from Jersey, and the Festival sponsor, Martin Belcher of Polygon Collective.
An Alderney Literary Trust Murder Mystery
MURDER AT THE HEDGEHOG
Saturday, 26 November 2022
An entertaining evening of murderous mystery and intrigue all alongside a fabulous 6-course meal took place at The Blonde Hedgehog, with dinner guests throwing themselves into their roles and embracing their inner sleuths.
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It was a huge success, only marred by the absence of our Ravenscroft sponsor guests, whose flights to Alderney were cancelled due to weather. If you did not attend, our video noir (click on the image) gives you an idea of what you missed.
A New Sponsor for the Alderney Literary Trust
September 2022
A NEW sponsor for The Alderney Literary Trust will enable it to increase its impact on the community.
Ravenscroft has committed to sponsoring the Trust, having initially been one of the sponsors of the 2022 Alderney Literary Festival.
‘The sponsorship has come as a blessing, and the Trust is super excited to partner with Ravenscroft. Their support will help the Trust to support more of these events and undertake more charitable initiatives to increase its impact in the wider community,’ said Isabel Picornell, founder and trustee of Alderney Literary Trust. ‘It’s fantastic that a company which is so new to the island is already making a commitment to the community.’
The investment services company recently opened an office at 38, High Street to offer its range of investments to Alderney, where it already has a number of clients. ‘Supporting the communities within which we operate is central to the Ravenscroft ethos. We have offices in Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and the UK and are proud of the charities, schools, sports, voluntary organisations and community events which we sponsor. By doing so, it allows us to see clients and meet new ones and is our way of thanking the communities for the support they have given us,’ said group managing director Mark Bousfield. ‘The Alderney Literary Trust has some exciting plans for the coming year, and we look
forward to being involved.’
Anthony Horowitz sets latest book on Alderney
August 2021
Bestselling author Anthony Horowitz's new book - A Line to Kill - was published on 19 August 2021.
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Set at an imaginary Alderney Literary Festival, the investigative duo Hawthorne and Horowitz work their way through dodgy authors, murdered sponsors, even dodgier WW2 history, and FAB (called NAB in the book) feuding locals to get their killer in the end in true Agatha Christie style!
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The real Alderney Literary Festival will never be the same again.
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Watch our interview with Anthony Horowitz from our Lit Bites page.
Tish Delaney Book Launch
Thursday, 25 March 2021
Tish Delaney launched her debut novel "Before My Actual Heart Breaks", to a packed room of her Alderney fans at The Georgian House Hotel.
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Following a brief introduction by Alderney Lit Trust Trustee, Dr Isabel Picornell, Tish performed a short reading and then proceeded to sign copies of her book, which completely sold out.
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Dr Picornell said of the book, "It is much more than a love story. It speaks to me of the lives of real people in very difficult times, of Mary Rattigan, 16 years old, pregnant, Catholic, growing up in Northern Ireland during the time of The Troubles. Mary is as complex a character as the North and its Troubles.
The Suspense Event - “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
14 November 2020
A packed audience joined bestselling thriller-writer Rachel Abbott in a creative writing workshop, The Suspense Event, to explore some of the techniques of successful suspense writing.
The workshop started on the Friday evening with the film showing of the iconic 1940s version of Rebecca, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. ​Using Rebecca as a guide, Rachel and forensic linguist Isabel Picornell took the workshop participants through the basics of building suspense into their stories and described how linguistic choices could enhance their characters and create richer, more believable and enthralling scenarios.
It was such a success that we promised to run a similar workshop exploring another classic novel in the future.