Author Isabel Losada to take part in this year’s SW11 Literary Festival.
Battersea author Isabel Losada will spend a week working in the Waterstones window, as part of this year’s SW11 Literary Festival.
The Author in Residence event, a first for the long running festival, starts on 19 September and is a chance for Battersea residents to see a bestselling author at work.
An SW11 resident for 15 years, Ms Losada’s most well-known book ‘The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment’ has sold over 100,000 copies in 16 countries.
She is looking forward to being on display and to perhaps challenging a stereotype or two.
“Authors have a reputation for being stuffy elderly women who live with their cats and wear purple and never go out and see the light”, she joked.
Her Twitter and Facebook details will be on display, and she encourages locals to come and look, wave, mock, ask questions and hopefully go inside and buy a book.
“I was also an actress for 10 years before becoming an author so don’t mind people looking at me and laughing”, she said.
The festival, which runs from 17 September to 3 October, is organised by the Clapham Junction Town Centre Partnership (CJTCP) in conjunction with Waterstones.
CJTCP Manager Lorinda Frient said it was originally conceived eight years ago as a way to raise the profile of Battersea.
“We needed something interesting and creative to attract more business to the area”, she said.
“People didn’t think it would work, they actually laughed at us.”
The sceptics have been proved wrong, and the event has grown to become one of the highlights of the Battersea calendar.
This year over 30 writers, including novelists, bloggers, poets and journalists will take part in numerous events across multiple venues.
With the first event just two weeks away, the fun has already started with 14 monsters (the theme for this year) currently hidden around the town centre. Children and adults alike can become monster spotters, with prizes on offer.
For more information on the Festival, including the Author in Residence and Monster Hunt, go to www.clapham-junction.com/en/events-and-attractions1/sw11-literary-festival/index.cfm
