Literature
Saturday November 14th 6:30 PM Book Launch “The Hide” by Linda Newbery, in conversation with her friend and mentor Jane Rogers, RSL.
This new novel has an art focus: the main character, Alys, is head of art at a comprehensive school, and flashbacks to her student days tell of her damaging association with a talented young artist who modelled himself on Egon Schiele.
Linda Newbery is a local write and Costa Book Award category winner.
Jane Rogers, RSL is an acclaimed writer known best for Mr Wroe's Virgins, which she dramatised for television, and for her current climate-themed short story collection, Fire-Ready.
Pond Life by Sally Bayley
Sunday February 14 2027 6pm, £10/5
A talk about her new book, & about how to write and find inspiration.
In a digital age, Pond Life asks who will record the lives that do not appear on screen. Enter Edith Cull, unmarried and working as an occasional cover teacher. Edith's life lacks biography. Her chief pleasure and source of excitement is the cinema. Encouraged by on-screen fantasies, Edith attaches herself to the local chemist, the stalwart Mr. Jarvis. In the same town lives Dorothy Fortescue married to the noble Henry. Behind her manor walls, Dorothy lives out another form of spectral existence. As lady of the manor, Dorothy summons 'Pond Man' who arrives to build her a garden pond; and upon the surface of her pond Dorothy projects the all the scenery of her boredom and grief. The lives of these two women reflect and illuminate one another and in a crucial moment of misreading their lives intertwine...
Sally Bayley
Sally Bayley is a fiction and non-fiction writer who lives on a narrowboat on the River Thames in Oxford. Sally is currently a Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford. She also teaches on the Sarah Lawrence visiting programme at Wadham College, Oxford.
book launch John Williams Memoirs from the frontline: Poems of War, Memory, Becoming and Homecoming.
Sunday December 13th 26 6-8pmMemoirs from the Frontline by local author John Williams. 45 minute talk followed by questions and time to mingle,
Memoirs From The Frontline is the debut book by John Williams, a former Royal Marine who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, the jungle, and the Arctic. This hybrid memoir blends war writing, veteran experience, trauma recovery, fatherhood, and poetic reflection to explore the emotional realities of modern conflict and the long road home.
Written in a unique mix of memoir and poetry, Memoirs From The Frontline offers a raw and lyrical account of PTSD, identity, and the unseen battles carried long after service. The book speaks to veterans, military families, and readers interested in modern warfare, mental health, and personal transformation.
John Williams lives in Chipping Norton with his wife and continues to write and reflect, giving voice to the quiet truths of memory, healing, and becoming. His three children remain a central part of his life and journey.
Past Book launches
Saturday 14th June 2025 6-8PM
Book launch of Rosie Orr’s A Trick of the Light
A new psychological thriller, wine and nibbles.
Fascist Yoga by Stewart Home.
Saturday July 12th 2025 7-9PM in the gallery Stewart Home presents
Fascist Yoga, his brand new book, which will be available to buy.
admission 5GBP
Please email director at artandtalking.com if you would like to talk about your book.
Authors’ talks past
Sunday 14th September 2025 Linda Newbery local author on how stone-carving has appeared in her novels, The Shell House, Set in Stone (Costa Book Award category winner) and The One True Thing.
Saturday October 11 7-9PM 2025, Guy Stagg presents “The World Within”, his new book on the role of retreat in creative and intellectual lives. £5, wine available, and shared food to follow.
“All my life I have dreamed of retreat. Of letting go each responsibility and cutting every tie. And I know I’m not the only one. But, when I learnt about the creative figures who left their lives behind, I began to ask myself: what is gained and what is lost when we withdraw from the world?”
Guy Stagg tells the story of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the poet and painter David Jones, and the writer Simone Weil. All three went on retreat during times of crisis, to find their work and their lives changed for eve. Stagg followed Wittgenstein to the ancient monastery outside Vienna where he recovered from depression, sailed to the isolated island off the Welsh coast where Jones discovered a new way to make art, and spent Lent at the forbidding French Abbey that sparked an epiphany in Weil’s thinking. Stagg’s first book The Crossway described his walk from Canterbury to Jerusalem, and won numerous awards.
Sunday November 9th 2025 2-4PM, local author Peter Buckman presents " The Pumpernickel Mysteries" and talks about his life as a publisher, author and literary agent. £5, wine available.
Buckman was the youngest editor at Penguin, and is now one of the oldest literary agents still working. As a full-time writer, he produced books, plays, scripts for films, television, and radio and, in his 80s, returned to writing and has published six novels in the crime series The Pumpernickel Mysteries, under his imprint Word of Mouth Books He will talk about a literary career spanning over sixty years and happily pass on hints about what to embrace and what to avoid.
Saturday February 14th 2026 7-9pm Nell Stevens presents “The Original”
“Deliciously engaging and wildly intelligent. I adored this novel about art, authenticity and desire” Ayşegül Savaş,
Author’s talk, £5
Saturday March 14 2026 7-9pm Daniel Rachel- will discuss his new book
This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich.
“Rachel is not looking to cancel or absolve but instead explore the musical obsession with atrocity and how it relates to rock history in general. A sadly rather timely book.” NME
Sunday May 10th ‘26 Dr. Morag Rose, will lead a walk & then present her new book
“ The Feminist Art of Walking”.
11am - 12.30pm: Walk
1pm: Talk
Join walking artist, activist and author Morag Rose for a walk and talk with The Feminist Art of Walking, her first book.
This walking is inclusive of all kinds of bodies and enabling technologies such as wheelchairs, orthotics and sticks. Our feminism is intersectional, trans inclusive and always open to learning.
Morag will lead a walk sharing themes and readings from the book, and then we will gather in Art & Talking for a conversation. All welcome to join us for all or part of the event.
Walk, at 11am-12.30pm:
The tour begins at Art and Talking, meeting at 10.50am to leave at 11am. The walk will last approximately 90 minutes and follow a route through the city streets in the vicinity of the art centre. The terrain will be the locality around Chipping Norton and will include pavements, tracks and grassy, possibly muddy places. We will avoid stairs, steep inclines and exceptionally hazardous sites. The pace will be slow with frequent stops to share stories, and some of those stops will include places to sit down. We will then make our way back to Arts and Talking for around 12.30pm when we will have an opportunity to have a chat, answer questions and sign books etc. Toilets, including accessible toilets, are available. Refreshments are available at Arts and Talking. In case of extreme weather the event will go ahead in Arts & Talking with a reading instead of a walk. We want everyone to feel welcome to walk or wheel with us. If you have any specific access needs please get in touch before the event and we will do our very best to accommodate you. Please also get in touch if you have any questions or need any more information.
1pm: Talk
Following the walk we will gather for a conversation. There will be refreshments from after the walk at Arts & Talking.
Bio
Morag Rose is a walking artist, activist and author based in Salford UK. In 2006 she founded The Loiterers Resistance Movement and she has performed, exhibited and published her work widely. Morag is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at The University of Liverpool. Her first book The Feminist Art of Walking (2025) is published by Pluto.
Mon October 5th 6PM THE POET'S PATH: Adventures in Poetry from Chipping Norton to the Albert Hall!
Tony Bicât is a local writer, playwright and lyricist. As a lyricist he has worked for many years with his brother Nick. Teeth & Smiles for which they wrote the songs has recently been revived in the West End.
Tony has always written a certain amount of poetry and never really known what to do with it. Ten years ago, during the Chipping Norton Literary festival, he went to a Hammer and Tongue open mike in the back room of The Chequers in Chippy and read a poem. It was well received and led to a journey that included performing at The Royal Albert Hall and the publication of his pamphlet The Grey Cat and next year his collection The Cotswold Sea. A witty and informative talk with a few poems about the practice of poetry.
Chipping Norton Festival of Art & Literature.
Chipping Norton Literary Festival ran for a dozen years, welcoming over 1,000 authors to 550 events over four day weekends each April. The festival was founded in 2012 by bestselling author and former Chipping Norton resident Clare Mackintosh , then run by non resident Jenny Dee from 2016. In 2015 Chipping Norton Literary Festival started to pay authors a share of the event’s profits, as well as travel and accommodation costs, which worked out at nearly £100 per hour for authors. Sadly the trustees disbanded the organisation in 2024.
We hope to reanimate the spirit of a Chipping Norton focussed on literature in June 2027, with the Chipping Norton Festival of Art and Literature and we welcome any, and all help, contributions or leadership in doing so.
It is planned to take place from June 18 -21, to coincide with the solstice.