Fishbourne Literary Festival
11th April 2026
9.45am Opening from Kate Mosse CBE FRSL and speaker from Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice
10.00 – 10.45 Love Lane
Patrick Gale will be in conversation with his old friend Kate Mosse about his new novel, Love Lane, a story of marriage, homemaking, honesty and secrets which features Harry Cane, the hero of his runaway bestseller, A Place Called Winter. Their talk is bound to be wide ranging but will touch on the joys and difficulties of unearthing family secrets in fiction and the challenge of writing historical fiction so that it feels fresh and not heavily researched.
Patrick Gale in conversation with Kate Mosse
10.45 – 11.15 Break and book signings by Patrick Gale and Kate Mosse
11.15 – 12.00 Visions of Postwar England
Best-selling novelists Clare Chambers (Small Pleasures) and Lissa Evans (Crooked Heart and Old Baggage) interview each other about their new books, Shy Creatures and Small Bomb at Dimperley, both of which tackle significant moments of social change.
Clare Chambers and Lissa Evans introduced by Mark Hoult
12.00 – 12.30 Break and book signing by Clare Chambers and Lissa Evans
12.30 – 1.15pm Enchanting the Blitz
Francis Spufford’s new novel is a literary fantasy set in the wartime London of 1940. Why would a prize-winnning writer of historical fiction want to add magic to the real terrors of the Blitz? What can fantasy show us that other kinds of novel can’t?
Francis Spufford introduced by Mark Hoult
1.15 – 2.15 Break and book signing by Francis Spufford
2.15 – 3.00 In Conversation with Mike Gayle
Join us for a conversation with journalist and former agony uncle Mike Gayle as he talks about what it’s like to be a man writing love stories, and his latest book, Hope Street—a story about love, connection and hope—following trainee journalist Lila Metcalfe, sent to cover a story about a housing development being held up by a single resident who refuses to leave.
Mike Gayle in conversation with Kate Mosse
3.00 – 3.30 Break and book signing by Mike Gayle
3.30 – 4.15 Writing Women, Past and the Present
Anna Mazzola will be in conversation with Kate Mosse about their work, the importance of telling women’s stories from history, and writing about both the past and present. They will discuss the real history behind their books, including Kate’s Labyrinth and Anna’s The Book of Secrets. They will also touch on feminist history, Kate’s Feminist History for Every Day of the Year, and Anna’s work seeking justice for survivors.
Anna Mazzola in conversation with Kate Mosse
4.15 – 4.45 Break and book signing by Anna Mazzola
Speakers
Patrick Gale is a keen cellist, gardener, beekeeper and patron of the Penzance LitFest and Charles Causley Trust. He lives with his husband, the farmer and sculptor, Aidan Hicks, on their farm, Trevilley, at the western tip of Cornwall, where they open their garden every June for the National Gardens Scheme. In addition to his latest, Love Lane, his eighteen novels include Mother’s Boy (2022), Take Nothing With You (2018), which was his fourth Sunday Times bestseller, Rough Music (2000), Notes From an Exhibition (2007), A Perfectly Good Man (2012) and A Place Called Winter (2015). In 2017 his two-part drama Man in an Orange Shirt formed part of the BBC’s Gay Britannia season, won the International Emmy for best miniseries and is now being developed as a musical. He is currently working on a stage version of Take Nothing With You and adapting A Place Called Winter for television. He’s a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Instagram/Threads @Trevilley
Francis Spufford is the author of Golden Hill, which won the Costa First Novel Award in 2016 and three other literary prizes; also of Light Perpetual, longlisted for the Booker in 2021, and Cahokia Jazz in 2023. His most recent book Nonesuch was published by Faber in February 2026. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He lives in Essex, and is married to the Dean of Chelmsford Cathedral.
Mike Gayle has been a bestselling novelist for over 25 years and his books have been translated into more than 30 languages. The Man I Think I Know was selected for the Zoe Ball Book Club and Half A World Awayand A Song of Me & You were both Richard & Judy Book Club picks. Mike was longlisted for Best UK Author at theSpecsavers National Book Awards and shortlisted for the Pageturner of the Year at the British Book Awards. In 2021, Mike received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Romantic Novelists Association. Mike has sold over three million copies of his novels and his latest, Hope Street is out now.
Instagram – @mikegaylethenovelist
Facebook www.facebook.com/mikegayleauthor
Lissa Evans has written seven novels, including Their Finest Hour and a Half (filmed as Their Finest) and a loose trilogy comprising Crooked Heart (longlisted for the Bailey’s Prize), the best-selling Old Baggage, and V for Victory. Her latest novel, Small Bomb at Dimperley, set in a large country house just after the war, was published in September 2024. Two of her four books for children, Small Change for Stuart and Wed Wabbit, were shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Lissa has a background in radio and TV comedy production, and this year published a reminiscence about her time as the producer of the iconic sitcom Father Ted, entitled Picnic on Craggy Island.
Clare Chambers was born in Croydon in 1966 and began her career as a secretary at the publisher André Deutsch, when Diana Athill was still at the helm. Her first novel was published by Deutsch in 1992. Small Pleasures, her first work of fiction in a decade, became a word-of-mouth bestseller. It was chosen as a book of the year by The Times, Evening Standard, Daily Telegraph, and Spectator, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021 and won Pageturner of the Year at the British Book Awards 2022. Her latest novel is Shy Creatures.
Anna Mazzola is the award-winning author of historical, crime and Gothic novels. Her latest historical novel, The Book of Secrets, won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year 2025. Her debut novel, The Unseeing, won an Edgar Allan Poe award. Anna also writes legal thrillers under the name Anna Sharpe, the first of which, Notes on a Drowning, was a Times thriller of the month. When not writing or teaching, Anna is a human rights and criminal justice solicitor, working with survivors of crime. She lives in South London with two children, one husband, a black cat and a snake. She has good friends in Bosham, so regularly visits the area. She doesn’t bring the snake.
https://bsky.app/profile/annamazz.bsky.social
Https://www.facebook.com/AnnaMazzolaWriter
Https://www.instagram.com/annamazzolawriter
Kate Mosse CBE FRSL is an award-winning novelist, playwright, performer, interviewer and writer of history and memoir. The author of twelve novels and short-story collections, her books have been translated into thirty-eight languages and published in more than forty countries. Fiction includes the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy (Labyrinth, Sepulchre, Citadel), the No 1 bestselling Joubert Family Chronicles (The Burning Chambers, The City of Tears, The Ghost Ship, The Map of Bones) and Gothic fiction The Taxidermist’s Daughter and The Winter Ghosts. Her highly-acclaimed non-fiction includes An Extra Pair of Hands, Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries and her first YA non-fiction book Feminist History for Every Day of the Year. The Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction and the Founder of the global #WomanInHistory campaign, Kate is also a trustee of the British Library, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Authors and a Visiting Professor of Contemporary Fiction and Creative Writing at the University of Chichester. She was awarded a CBE in the King’s New Year’s Honours list 2024.