The Festival is delighted this year to welcome River Wolton. River grew up in London and lived in Sheffield for twenty years before moving to the Peak District. She was Derbyshire Poet Laureate 2007-9 and now works as a writing facilitator, specialising in tailor-made writing projects that engage people of all ages and backgrounds.

She is a co-author of Some Girls’ Mothers (Route 2008) an anthology of stories about mothers and daughters. Her pamphlet The Purpose of Your Visit was highly commended in the Poetry Business Competition 2007 and a full-length collection will be published in 2010. You Are Here: Travels of a Derbyshire Poet Laureate (Derbyshire County Council 2009) an account in prose and poems of her two years as Derbyshire Poet Laureate is available from all Derbyshire libraries.

This year again, the festival is inviting poems on the Journeys theme to be submitted for reading as part of this event. Anyone wanting to perform their own poems, should submit them typed, and no longer than 40 lines, to the Ashbourne Arts Office by 9 June.

In case of inclement weather, this event will be held in the Clifton Smith Hall, situated on the right hand side of the main road into Clifton after leaving the A515.

She writes about the big subjects - life, love, death - in a gloriously easy and accessible style.
- Tribune