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Double Costa Winner Success for 1st Ever National Student Writers’ Festival

PENCILFest, the UK’s first ever national student writers’ festival is celebrating striking double Costa prize gold as  both Costa Book Prize winner A.L. Kennedy and Costa First Book Prize winner Catherine O’Flynn have agreed to appear at this unique free student run literary festival.

The two Costa Winners lead a pack of other prize winning and acclaimed writers who have agreed to take part including:

Maureen Freely, the writer, journalist and translator for Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk.

Mick Jackson, the Man Booker and Whitbread nominated novelist.

David Morley, whose poetry collection ‘The Invisible Kings’ was chosen as Les Murray’s Book of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement.

Peter Blegvad, the acclaimed poet, musician and cartoonist behind the strip ‘Leviathan’.

Jeremy Treglown, a past editor of the TLS whose biography V. S. Pritchett: A Working Life (2004) was shortlisted for the 2004 Whitbread Biography Award and the Duff Cooper Prize.

Nina Raine, winner of both the 2006 Evening Standard's Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright and Most Promising Playwright Award at the 2006 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards.

Adriano Shaplin, playwright and co-founder of The Riot Group whose play Pugilist Specialist received The Scotsman's "First of the Firsts" award at the Edinburgh Fringe 2003.

The festival is a unique partnership of students and leading professional writers who will present their work side-by-side, creating new work and fresh ideas. The weekend will showcase poetry, fiction, comedy, theatrical writing, audio and new media, with a dynamic series of workshops and music performances, as well as two national competitions.

The festival will take place on Saturday 10th & Sunday 11th May 2008 in the University of Warwick’s CAPITAL Centre. The CAPITAL Centre is a  partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company, that uses theatre performance skills and experience to enhance student learning and to draw on University research and resources to shape the development of the RSC acting companies.

This Student literary festival is supported by the University of Warwick’s Warwick Writing Programme - one of the most established, expansive and well-respected university based writing programmes in the country.

More details on PENCILfest can be found at  www.pencilfest.com

Note for Editors: PENCILfest is funded by sponsors BBC Audio, The CAPITAL Centre, Warwick Graduates’ Association, the University of Warwick Bookshop; and patrons Professor Nigel Thrift (Vice Chancellor of the University) and David Morley (Poet, and Director of the Warwick Writing Programme).

PENCILFest can be found on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5989493860&ref=ts

For more information, please contact:

Sholeh Johnston, Coordinator, PENCILfest 2008

Email: sholehj@hotmail.com

Tel: 07825605157