We have some really exciting authors and speakers to take part in this our 4th year. There is a range of speakers, including mystery-writers, children’s authors, historians, politicians, poets, biographers, screen writers, and good old-fashioned story-tellers.

The brochure and full list of events has now been published.
Please go the the 'Authors and Tickets' page to see the full details, and to make on-line bookings.
 

Members of the ‘Friends of the Appledore Book Festival’’ are able to take advantage of 10% discount across a wide-range of events. If you would like more details, or to join as a Friend, please go to the ABF Friends page.

Why not tell a friend about the Festival? We start on Saturday 25th September through to Sunday 3rd October 2010, there are loads of events for all the family. Click here to tell them all about us.

Apart from being a beautiful place in North Devon - where is Appledore..?

Appledore stands at the junction of sky and sea. Its only connection with land is a peninsular bounded by salt marshes so unspoilt that they are part of a world biosphere site - and a rugged coastline beautiful enough to make you catch your breath.

Even when you stand in the heart of the village, on the stunning quay or wander the narrow winding streets lined with quaint colour-washed cottages, everything seems inspiringly unreal - a place of dreams and imagination.

Everywhere there are things to see and search for - a bronze age barrow, secret cobbled alleys and nooks that even the locals haven't found, lost wells and the strange lookout turrets of long-dead captains. Traces of a forgotten town where people spoke their own language and worshipped in hidden chapels and dined off shellfish and seaweed - click here to download some traditional Appledore recipes.

In Appledore, where time and tide collide, there seems little need for clocks and yet the village could stand on the brink of extinction. Every year the tides rise higher and threaten to flood the village.

The churchyard is full of drowned seafarers and on the Quay fishermen still sell fish that they risked their lives to catch.

Appledore is a town of a million stories and most of them have never been told. At night, your imagination can quickly conjure up images from the past - the sailors rewarded by Queen Elizabeth I when she made Appledore a free port returning home from an epic sea battle against the French, smugglers furtively crossing cobbled courtyards with their booty, press gangs lying in wait for their next victim outside one of the many village pubs and Cistercian monks on their way to their monastery at Docton House.

And then there is the mysterious ghost of the Appledore white rabbit that no-one can account for ... It has become a popular part of Appledore folklore especially among the children.

No wonder writers have loved this place and the village might well be haunted by the ghosts of Henry Williamson and Jerome K. Jerome and Kingsley and Kipling, who all found inspiration here.

In the end though, mere words will never do justice to a place that can only be lived. To know Appledore you must seek it and what better time to discover a village of dreams than a festival dedicated to the power of words and imagination?