Six Weeks To Go!
Dear Festival Friends
We’re delighted with the response to our 2025 programme so far. Ticket sales have been booming and we’re so grateful to everyone who has been buying. While we couldn’t do the Festival without the support of our loyal funders and sponsors, we also couldn’t make it happen without healthy ticket sales; the numbers simply wouldn’t add up.
We hope you’ve spotted our free printed Stroud Book Festival brochure around town – if you’d still like to get your hands on one, there are plenty of copies at Stroud Bookshop, Stroud Sub Rooms, Stroud Library, and other venues around the Stroud valleys.
With six weeks to go, tickets are still available for the majority of our events. A reminder that you can browse the full programme at stroudbookfestival.org.uk and then click through to buy your tickets online or go direct to thesubrooms.co.uk. Tickets can also be purchased by calling 01453 796880, or in-person at the Sub Rooms box office (Tuesday-Saturday, 10-4pm).
EVENT FOCUS: INTIMACY with ITA O’BRIEN
Saturday 8th November, 1–2pm, Stroud Sub Rooms
With credits including “Sex Education”, “I May Destroy You” and “Normal People”, Ita O’Brien is a world-leading intimacy coordinator for stage, film and television, with the likes of Olivia Colman and Michaela Coel testifying to the importance of her work around creating safe spaces for artistic expression.
We’re really excited to be welcoming Ita to Stroud Book Festival. She’ll be discussing how her experiences during her 40-year career as dancer, actor and movement teacher led her to address a glaring need for sage and sensitive advice around intimacy and consent. Her on-set intimacy guidelines are now used around the world.
This will be a brilliant event for anyone who works in a therapeutic setting or with young people; or indeed for anyone interested in how we create healthier connections with our own bodies in order to enhance our close relationships.
You can read Programme Director Caroline Sanderson’s interview with Ita O’Brien here.
See you soon!
With love from
The Stroud Book Festival team x