Llandeilo felt the literary buzz last week when the fifth Literature Festival proved an all-out success.

“We’ve had some overwhelmingly positive feedback for all the sessions which took place,” said festival chair, Christoph Fischer.

“The festival attracted around 600 visitors to the town so as a result, this was a huge boost to everyone involved.”

This was the festival’s first hybrid version with 20 sessions held in Welsh and English throughout the two days.  Half of the sessions were streamed live on zoom to remote viewers.

The event took place almost exclusively in Hengwrt, the newly refurbished Shire Hall in the centre of town, which has state of the art technical equipment and meeting rooms. 

The most popular sessions over the weekend featured local authors, such as Geoff Brooks, Helen Adam, Ingrid Birchell Hughes, Kate Glanville and Sian Collins as well as the Archdruid Myrddyn ap Dafydd who travelled from North Wales for the event.

Welsh language sessions with authors and poets from all over Wales took part and topical events such as Queer writing and a manifesto on non-binary issues also drew in large audiences.

A bilingual storytelling walk on Saturday led people from Newton House back to Hengwrt, where 18 out of the 20 events were being held.

Music lovers were also well catered for, thanks to the Flows café on Market Street

‘There was definitely a big buzz around town and being able to host a music and lyric event at the café as part of the festival was a pleasure and proved to be a great success,” said Flows owner, Laura Ann Hubbard.