For the past six years, Metal Southend has presented Essex Writers House, a popular annual programme hosted at Chalkwell Hall in partnership with Essex Book Festival. Across the month, we host a range of events, workshops and sharings for writers across our county. Essex Writers House invites anybody interested in writing to take part, from beginners to established authors, book lovers to families, and storytellers of all kinds.
Hosted at Chalkwell Hall, the programme is a great chance to engage with interesting stories and meet readers, writers and creative thinkers from the area. The events, partnerships and workshops offer views across the Thames Estuary, cosy spaces for informal sharings and access to the beautiful surrounding grounds of Chalkwell Park, with settings which offer plenty of space and inspiration to celebrate the written word.
Previous editions of Essex Writers House have included a range of events, from weekly storytime picnics, open mic nights, radical pilgrimage’s, book launches, networking events, book clubs, mentoring sessions, performances, activities for young children and more.
This 2024, Metal Southend became a house for writers to read, to write overlooking the Thames Estuary, to get help and feedback on work or to have lively, meandering conversations with other writers. This was the seventh edition of Essex Writers House, in partnership with Essex Book Festival and we’re always amazed by the connections made and the ideas that come up when writers take over this special building.
In 2023, Ros Green, director of Essex Book Festival, spent two weeks in residency at Studio 459, a new co-living artist residency space in Tomar, as part of a partnership residency with us. Whilst in residence, Ros wrote a blog about the development of Essex Writers House over the years. Check it out here.
Images Essex Writers House 2023:
Images from Essex Writers House 2022:
Images from Essex Writers House 2021:
