This weekend my home town of Trowbridge is launching its very own arts festival. As you might expect from an English country town, it has a somewhat eccentric list of events: everything from a knitting contest to “have a go bell ringing” to Burlesque, Morris Men and Islamic Calligraphy. It also has book events, featuring popular writers such as Val McDermid and Ben Kane. It is a measure of how conclusively we are winning the culture war that the centerpiece literary event is a day of science fiction and fantasy sponsored by our local Waterstones. It will feature local(-ish) writers such as Joe Abercrombie, Moira Young, Juliet McKenna, Guy Haley and Jonathan Howard. I’m not involved in organizing this, though I might have played a small part in introducing the organizers to some fine writers. I will, however, be there on Saturday to see it all happen. I will be very interested to see how it goes.