The Independent Bath Literature Festival: How reading can keep you young

To celebrate its first 21 years, The Independent Bath Literature Festival will be focusing on first-time writers – and those who remain young at heart, its artistic director tells Nick Clark

Viv Groskop, the festival's artistic director (Steve Lennon)

On its 21st birthday, The Independent Bath Literature Festival is seeking to embrace the “forever young”, whether that means debut novelists or those marching on enthusiastically into their ninth decade. Viv Groskop, the festival's artistic director, wants participants and visitors to this year's event to think “about what they felt at 21 and what they read and what they thought their lives were going to be like”.

To tie in with the theme, she will be discussing the best coming-of-age novels with the cultural journalist Mark Lawson and the arts writer and novelist Stephanie Merritt. What started as a longlist of 50 novels, including JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, has been whittled down to a shorter list of 21. They will decide an overall winner at the event.

A strong strand focuses on debut authors. “Not all of them are young – hence the forever young tag,” Groskop said. “This year sees the largest number of debut authors we've ever had at Bath.” More than 20 debut authors will be featured this year, including those at Bloomsbury's New Writing showcase, which includes writers such as Ann Morgan, Paul MM Cooper and Holly Muller.

The Big Bath Read is by Claire Fuller, whose book Our Endless Numbered Days won this year's Desmond Elliott prize for a debut author. She released her first work after taking up writing in her forties. The theme also celebrates the older authors and readers at the festival. “We have a ridiculous amount of octogenarians,” Groskop joked, including Joan Bakewell – “the epitome of forever young” – and the activist Harry Leslie Smith.

Gloria Steinem, now 81, is visiting the UK for the first time in over 20 years to give a talk on a life in feminism. The event has already sold more than 800 tickets. “I'm so glad we decided to put it on. There are feminists coming from all over the country,” Groskop said. “It's almost like a feminist hen party.” That has been part of the driver behind the festival's record ticket sales this year.

Daphne Selfe, 87, the world's oldest supermodel, will talk about her love of fashion, which began with the organdie frocks of her 1930s childhood. One guest who joins the octogenarian club this year, although not in time for the festival, is the actor Brian Blessed, who will be talking about his autobiography, Absolute Pandemonium.

“He's very popular,” Groskop said. “He is probably our most unpredictable guest; I know because I've tried to interview him before. But it's very entertaining to watch, I'm sure.”

One event, chaired by Bakewell, will explore the topic of women and the ageing process. “It's really getting people to think about the sweep of life and how their reading tastes change,” Groskop said.

Pat Barker will open the festival on Friday 26 February, with a discussion of her latest novel, Noonday. Sebastian Faulks, author of Birdsong and Charlotte Grey, will be talking about his life and work as well as his latest novel, Where My Heart Used to Beat. Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, will speak about her new work, At the Edge of the Orchard.

Comedians Dom Joly and Al Murray, the Pub Landlord, will appear; so too will the jazz musician Jamie Cullum, though he will not be behind a piano. “He is a local Bath celebrity and he is much loved,” Groskop said. “He is a supporter of the music festival but has never performed at the literature festival.”

Cullum has backed a magazine called The Eighty-Eight and is interested in non-fiction writing and journalism. “He wants to talk about the books that have influenced him and his songwriting,” the artistic director said.

There will also be a Shakespeare Gala, marking the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death. Gala events will include Salon: Collective, of London's Cockpit Theatre, which recreates what some academics believe is the way Shakespeare was premiered in Elizabethan times. The actors know their lines and their cues; they do not know anyone else's, or the story. They will present short extracts from six or seven plays.

The Gala will also include Rhapsodes, in which Extempore Theatre (the people behind the West End smash hit Showstopper!) will perform “crazy and amazing” improvised plays in Shakespearean language, based on suggestions from the audience. “It's for families,” Groskop said. “I want some people's first experience of Shakespeare to be chaotic and funny.”

This is Ms Groskop's third and final festival as artistic director. “It has been an amazing experience to do this and find out how these not-for-profit festivals work. You have to learn to be really creative as funding falls. You have to put on events that will be popular and make money. That's how they will survive.”

The Independent Bath Literature Festival is on from 26 February to 6 March (bathfestivals.org.uk/literature)