Thursday 16 September
at 7.30pm in the Johnson Studio of the Octagon Theatre, Yeovil, BA20 1UZ

Writer and poet James Crowden is a champion of all things pertaining to the west country. We welcome him to our Literary Somerset Prose Café. James is well known for his books on cider and the ways of Somerset, but his most recent book is a fantastic encyclopaedia of all the links between literature and Somerset.

Literary Somerset explores the literary highways and byways of Somerset. In so doing James has produced an intellectual road map of Somerset from Anglo-Saxon times up to the present day. His book reveals more than 350 writers: early chroniclers and opium addicted Romantic poets, philosophers, pirates and playwrights, eccentric clergymen, diarists, herbalists, novelists and historians, travellers, chefs and scientists - from Gildas to John Cleese, Fay Weldon and Terry Pratchett.

Many of these literary connections are well known: TS Eliot and East Coker, Wordsworth and Coleridge in the Quantocks; but did you know that Thomas Hardy once lived in Yeovil; or that John Steinbeck lived near Bruton to research the Arthurian legends; or that the weird electrical experiments of Andrew Crosse at Fyne Court inspired Frankenstein? Did you know that Cheddar Gorge inspired Lord of the Rings?

All our Café events are sponsored by the YCAA so the full price for a ticket is only £5, obtainable from the Octagon Theatre box office or at the door on the night. There is a bar available where wine or juice can be purchased to accompany the nibbles provided at each table.

We welcome our regulars and all new-comers to our Prose Cafés.