Nature and the Environment are playing a leading role in this year’s Essex Book Festival. As such, we’re absolutely delighted to be hosting an author event with the 1st Winner of the Climate Fiction Prize launched at Hay Festival last June. And we’re even more delighted that the winning writer – Abi Daré – comes from Benfleet!
The question is, have you got your ticket to hear winner Abi Daré talking about And So I Roar at Grays Library in Thurrock on Tuesday 3rd June?
The novel explores the lives of women and girls in rural Nigeria as they navigate the devastating impacts of environmental collapse in a part of the world where families are losing their homes, where communities are being forced to adapt in unexpected ways, all of which rarely makes the news.
‘A book of real energy and passion which both horrifies and entertains with a cast of compelling characters, a story of how the climate crisis can provoke social crisis where often women and children are the victims. Despite the tragedy, Abi Daré holds faith in the strength of individuals and relationships, and her hopefulness leaves us inspired.’
Climate Fiction Prize Chair, Madeleine Bunting
Another book causing quite the stir is Chloe Dalton’s Raising Hare – an instant Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller, short-listed for The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2025, short-listed for the British Book Awards’ Book of the Year 2025, short-listed for Waterstones Book of the Year, and a Critics’ Best Books pick for The Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Spectator and iNews.
We are beyond pleased to be co-hosting an author event with Chloe Dalton and her fellow nature-writer James Canton as part of EA Festival at Hedingham Castle on Saturday 14th June. James Canton’s fabulous new book Renaturing is also causing more than a ripple or two in the world of nature-writing.
Other Nature and Environment festival events include the launch of Radical Islands on Mersea Island on 1st June featuring Jules Pretty and Ken Worpole, Wildlife Detectives at the Wild Space (8th June, Maldon), Wild Swim and Write Workshop: Sense the Estuary, in partnership with the Federation of Essex Women’s Institutes and Metal as part of Essex Writers House (21st June, Southend), and Batty About Bats with the National Trust (21st June: Rainham Hall).