Literary festival will be held all summer long here in Doncaster at the Frenchgate Shopping Centre

The festival will begin on August 3 and will run until the end of the summer holidays.

There will be creative workshops and activities as well as meet and greets.

Ian Leech, marketing manager at Frenchgate, said: “We are really looking forward to launching the literary festival.

“It is important for us as a centre to champion literacy and the arts so the festival is our way of celebrating them and involving the local community.

“We have such a wide range of activities planned, there is something for all ages to enjoy.”

On Friday, August 20, Peter Rabbit will be visiting the centre to meet and greet his fans at 12pm, 1pm and 2pm.

He will also be holding narration sessions at 11am and 3pm.

It is a free ticketed event.

There will be storytelling and draw along sessions by children’s author Phillip Shepard on August 11 and 18 between 1 and 3pm outside Waterstones.

Photographer Jamie Bubb will be introducing his exhibition ‘The Books That Made Us’ on the art space rail inside Frenchgate at the end of August.Jamie said: “We all have a book, ‘that’ book, the one that changed us, our thinking, our outlook, our perspective.

“Perhaps it made us laugh when we hadn’t had much to laugh about for a while or maybe it made us cry for all the right reasons.

“It caught us just at the right time, the right age, and it spoke to you.

“I’ve tried to explore that special relationship we have with literature in these portraits of Doncaster folks in and around our town.

“If you haven’t found ‘that’ book yet, I hope these images and stories convince you it’s worth looking for.”

During the festival a book exchange will open outside Waterstones where people will be encouraged to bring a book to take a book.

Local theatre company, The Buglight Theatre are launching a pop-up shop in the centre named Create Space.

They will take part in the literary festival with activities such as storytelling, crafting and puppetry workshops.

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