Rochester Literature Festival

Last chance to celebrate Medway Women’s History Month!

The first event of the day, and we’re talking to fearless females who founded their own companies which culturally enrich their communities. From 12noon-1pm, meet Medway’s Creative Women.

The conversation will be chaired by our very own Festival Director Jaye Nolan, a member of Medway’s cultural and creative community since 2010. A freelance writer since 2007, Jaye founded the festival in 2011, as a website resource to collate writing opportunities, but this quickly turned into live events – and here we are, 14 years later!

Lynne Parker decided twenty years ago that women were funny, after taking exception to a man telling her they weren’t. She promptly founded Funny Women CIC and set out to prove it. It’s just entering its twenty second year, with community projects, business training and awards among its many strands dedicated to empowering women in comedy and life in general.

Sue Davis, a freelance web content trainer also joins the panel. Sue was co-founder of the first anti-internet censorship organisation in UK, and helped programme and run the first conference about web design in the UK. Since the mid-nineties she’s trained thousands of people in web content design, and made websites for artists, musicians, charities and campaigns. In the 1990s she presented tv shows on technology and the early Internet for Sky and the BBC. 

Reserve your space here

At 2pm, the Medway Women’s History Month team, led by Georgia Read-Cutting will host an interactive session to celebrate incredible women that no-one has heard of – prepare to be shocked! Bring along the name of the woman who most inspired you to share with the group, and we’ll see what else Alexa can find out about her – she might even make it into Georgia’s ‘Notable Women’ book, currently being written 🙂

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Then from 4pm, join us for music, poetry and comedy, with a set from one of Medway’s most talented songstresses, Didi Bergman, who appeared at the launch of the Rochester Literature Festival, our Garden Party in Eastgate House Gardens nearly thirteen years ago! I feel quite old and might have to lie down …

Didi started working in several bands in 1993 as a bass player and backing vocalist, for about ten years. After that, she sang main vocals in a duo called Bergman Sigh. Her partner bought her a guitar and she started making up chord shapes and songs, and was invited out to play by some of her younger musician friends. She ended up playing small festivals and local pubs, once supporting Hazel O Connor. She has also been on bills with Martin Carthy, Nick Harper, and Judy Dyble. We can’t wait to hear her again 🙂

The finale will also host the launch of a new poetry collection by MWHM team member SM Jenkin in a collaboration with Rosemary McLeish, sadly no longer with us. Read all about Unspeakable here.

There will be poetry, comedy, music and much more from some of the creative members of the MWHM team and special guests. And then, we party (BYOB!).

Reserve your space here.

The finale will take place at The Net Community Hub, 70 Silverweed Road, Walderslade ME5 0QX from 1pm – 2pm on Saturday 29th March 2025. Doors open 11.00am for refreshments. Tickets will be released soon.

The events are free, and tea and coffee will be available for a suggested £1 donation. If you have difficulty due to mobility or finance issues attending the hub, please contact Jaye at: community@waldersladehub.org as there is a travel bursary available to people living in Medway.

For the full programme, visit here.

We do hope you can join us 🙂