BEWDLEY Festival will be expanding its horizons this year, to include a literary day for the first time ever.

The main Bewdley Festival opens on Friday October 12 at the Mercure Bewdley Heath Hotel, where the former Fine Young Cannibals front-man Roland Gift will be a big attraction.

But a spokesman added: “Two weeks before that big kick-off, the Festival has a very special Literary Day taking place in St George’s Hall. “In fact, we are planning a series of Literary Days to continue the great work previously created by Bewdley Book Week.

“ It is hoped to hold a Literary Day once every quarter in the future. But the very first Festival Literary Day will be held on Saturday September 29.”

The event will features “three diverse writers, all with a passion for history”.

They are writer and broadcaster, Stuart Maconie; best-selling author, Gill Paul and the popular local historian, Fen Flack.

The spokesman added: “In the morning, at 11am local writer and historian Fen Flack will be speaking about Completing the trilogy. For the last two years she has kept us gripped not just by her Ironside narrative but by the demands of the physical production of her novels. Book three is complete! Edmund Ironside’s grandchildren, Margaret and Edgar, face the conquering Normans in this final novel which weaves fact and fiction.

“Were the battles in the story mirrored by battles in the publishing? Come and find out.”

The afternoon session begins at 2pm when Gill Paul will speak about her historical fiction. Her new novel, Another Woman’s Husband, “is about links you may not have been aware of between Wallis Simpson, later Duchess of Windsor, and Diana, Princess of Wales”.

The day concludes at 8pm with Stuart Maconie, the radio DJ and television presenter, writer, journalist, and critic. He is currently a presenter on BBC Radio 6 Music

Tickets from :www.bewdleyfestival.org.uk