Author Featured in Observer Coming to Rye

Check out today's Sunday Observer: in the Review section is a piece on how artists' make a living and the novelist interviewed is Evie Wyld, who talks about how she makes ends' meet - an advance for her first novel and working part-time in a bookshop.

Celebrating Rye's John Fletcher

Great news that the Fletcher in Rye group and the Church have purchased the old FE Centre in Rye's Lion Street. This means that the Fletcher group's exciting plans to convert their half of the buildings on the site into a cinema, entertainment centre and cafe can, at last, get underway, creating a new, vibrant facility for the people of Rye in the heart of the town!

Olympic Flame Fires Up Rye

With the Olympic flame coming through Rye today (the wrong way up the one-way High Street) there is great excitement in the town. But there is also growing excitement about the Rye Arts Festival, which this year runs from 15th to 30th September., with a whole host of attractions across music, arts, theatre, comedy, literary events and much more.

For more information on the the full programme and how to get tickets click on Rye Arts Festival. Remember, there's just 59 days to go!

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Just got back from supporting friends doing Trailwalker 2012 - a 100km or 60 miles charity walk along the South Downs Way from Petersfield to Brighton in a maximum 30 hours! The conditions were horrendous - raining constantly through the day and night and thick mud underfoot for mile after mile, so huge credit to the 1,500 plus who completed the ordeal at Brighton Racecourse and well done for collectively raising over £1million for Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust.

Rye Arts Festival, between 15th and 30th September 2012, is serving up a variety of interesting walking opportunities, but nothing as nasty as Trailwalker.

Peckham: Rye - A Wyld Experience

In recent years Rye Arts Festival has been promoting new, young writers, and this year one of the most talented of the young generation of authors is coming to Rye in September to talk about her work. On 20th September Evie Wyld will be at the Mermaid Inn, talking about her first novel After The Fire, A Still Small Voice, which won the 2009 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (the second oldest literary prize in the UK), and is set in Australia following three generations with a focus on fathers and sons.

Uke Power! Yes Please

They're coming back, for the fourth time at Rye Arts Festival. The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain are playing this year's Festival on Saturday 22nd September at Rye College. Last time round the gig included pieces by the Uke maestro George Formby, British rapper Miss Dynamite and Nirvana. Grunge can rarely have had a more appreciative audience in Rye, with many older audience members getting off on Smells Like Teen Spirit!

Rye: A Fertile Place For Entertaining Doctors

This year's Rye Arts Festival is probably going to feature more medical doctors than Rye's two surgeries combined can muster. And the good news is that the medics aren't coming to treat us but to give us a treat.

First up is Instant Sunshine. They're a trio who having been singing their very own brand of humorous songs since the 1970's - an alternative and very successful career away from their day jobs treating the sick. Older Ryers will remember them on Stop the Week on Radio 4, back in the day when Robert Robinson was the Daddy.

41st annual Festival Launched

Despite the counter-attraction of the Wimbledon men's final a large complement of Festival Friends, Supporters and Sponsors were at the launch of the 2012 Rye Arts Festival on Sunday afternoon. The audience at Tilling Green Community Centre were rewarded with an entertaining presentation of all the individual events in this year's packed and exciting programme, delicious canapes and some rather good wine.

The Festival runs from 15th to 30th September and the other important dates for your diary are: