Alnwick Story Fest 2025: The Year Everything Collided (in the Best Possible Way)

Write your way to next year's festival - the writing hour starts at 9am. Zoom link at the bottom of this blog.

Every year, Alnwick Story Fest grows, evolves, and somehow becomes even more magical. But this year? This year was something else.

All my worlds smashed together in a glorious, chaotic, heart-expanding way—the Heart Leap universe, my oldest friends, my best friend, ex-magazine colleagues, coaching clients, brilliant people from Alnwick, and brand-new friends. And all of them gathered around the values that make this festival what it is: connection, creativity, community, inspiration and fun.

A Festival of Fearless Inspiration

We kicked off with the Allyson Kent Award for Fearless Writing, judged anonymously and featuring pieces so moving they blew our minds and cracked our hearts wide open. Huge credit to @JulietThomas for leading this, inspired by her late friend Allyson, who graced us with her presence last year.

Then came Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks —one of my all-time heroes—who made us face the biggest questions in life. What is the meaning of it all? What is the point? His answer?

The point is right here, right now. Stop waiting. Stop saying, I’ll be happy when... Just engage. Just do it.

And standing there, in the midst of this living, breathing festival of ideas, I thought: I am doing it. We are doing it.

The Wild, the Wonderful, and the Completely Unexpected

Emma Simpson’s book launch, Breaking Waves, hit me hard. She writes about overcoming grief through wild swimming—something I instinctively did as a grieving teenager, throwing myself into the freezing North Sea at Blyth, wondering what the hell I was doing. Turns out, I was doing exactly what Emma writes about—shocking my system into aliveness, expanding, surviving, feeling.

And this festival? It was about feeling alive.

Of course, ‘feeling alive’ also meant adrenaline-induced sleeplessness. On Friday night, buzzing with excitement, I got The Fear—that 3 a.m. panic spiral listing everything that could go wrong. But here’s what I’ve learned: The Fear is part of life. It nibbles at your sanity in the dark, but the sun rises, and you just crack on.

And crack on we did.

From crime to kitchens, antiques to education, publishing to poetry, we covered it all.

• Mari Hannah and Katherine Graham kept us on the edge of our seats with crime so gripping we were eyeing up alibis.

• Headteacher Sammy Wright and ex-Financial Times journalist Lucy Kellaway showed us how to change the world through education. (Lucy did it by quitting the FT and teaching in a Newcastle school. Casual career pivot! Sammy’s book Exam Nation hit the spot)

• James Braxton & Mark Hobrough gave us antiques with a touch of Lovejoy—mysteries, treasures, and more than a whiff of nostalgia.

• James, aged 10, revealed how to land a children's publishing deal and hit the No.1 slot. (No pressure, fellow writers.)

• Anna Chapman Parker led a wildly fascinating session on nature watching... weeds. (Yes, weeds! And it was glorious.)

• Nilo Uddin taught us how to write fearlessly and publish our truth—a session packed with passion and power.

• Gillian O'Mara with her Hidden Story team took us on a deep dive into whales and mermaids. (Move over, David Attenborough.)

• Anna Hedworth served up a Saturday morning cooking lesson that made us ravenous and inspired in equal measure.

  

And then came the moments of pure joy—Juliet Thomas reconnecting me to the magic trees in Alnwick Gardens, Sumit Paul-Choudhury convincing us to look on the bright side, Rachel Cooke leading a session on the beauty of female friendship.

Against the backdrop of global chaos—war, political madness, world leaders bickering like toddlers—Alnwick Story Fest felt like an antidote. Here, people were changing the world through kindness, creativity, and sheer generosity of spirit. Writers, artists, thinkers, and dreamers giving their time, their energy, and their hearts to create something magical.

From The Dressmakers of Auschwitz to Alexander McCall Smith making us scream with laughter, from LJ Ross beaming her brilliance onto a sold-out crowd to Adele Parks MBE bringing sparkle, wit, and warmth to open the festival.

From Jake Morris-Campbell & Katherine Renton taking us on a poetic journey through the Camino of the North, to Xanthe Gresham-Knight making us sing and say ‘vagina’ a lot.

From Piers Torday teaching us how to write children’s books, to Robin De Rosario showing neurodiverse writers how to craft their stories, to Claire Venus helping us build our own Substacks.

It was a weekend of brilliance, kindness, storytelling, and above all—FUN. A great, joyful, slightly chaotic tapestry of culture, ideas, and love.

And the best part?

This is just the beginning.

You can continue the journey today by joining the Heart Leap Writing Hour today at 9am.

Here’s the link and in the spirit of the festival, every one is invited today as a gift from me to you.

Suzy Walker is inviting you to the Heart Leap Writing Hour 9am-10am on Tuesday and Thursday every week

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82213810644?pwd=7Xbe9G7joQUmDwg5thjiUMLWJJPZQS.1

Meeting ID: 822 1381 0644

Passcode: 905299