The 21st year of celebrating words and ideas at Words by the Water in Keswick kicked off yesterday with a great atmosphere and anticipation at Theatre by the Lake.
Organised by Ways with Words, the literature festival runs until Sunday, March 20. The event didn’t go ahead last year due to lockdown.
The themes of Words by the Water speakers are often very relevant to today’s issues. This makes this festival so interesting, and also requires them to be flexible as the world continues to face COVID and conflict.
Today’s speakers Elizabeth Cripps at 2pm presenting Climate Activism is for Everyone and Paul Mason at 7pm talking about Fascism – A Recurring Nightmare will both be live on Zoom as they are isolating due to COVID and unable to attend in person.
Also, with number of speakers looking at our relationship with Russia this year. And, this may impact on reporter Luke Harding’s Friday, March 18, 3.30pm session The Kremlin vs Western Democracy.
A spokesperson for Words by the Water says: “As many of you will know Luke Harding is an investigative reporter. He has been in Ukraine reporting on the Russian invasion. As you will appreciate, this is a very changeable situation. Luke is due to return from Ukraine this week. However, if he is delayed by events over there, he will attend his talk via Zoom.
“We are hopeful that he will be with us in person, but we wanted to let you know that Luke may have to join us digitally instead. We will update you as soon as we know more information about Luke’s plans.
“This will still be an in-person event for the audience, so please arrive at the theatre as originally planned.”
Due to COVID our coverage of Words by the Water live has been impacted – we are sorry not to be live from the event, however we do have our previews to help guide you through a week of amazing speakers:
Check out our review of today in the Main House – Political Words
Check our our review of today in the Studio – World Issues.
