Bookbag

This weekend sees the launch of Echoes Lit Fest, a new festival featuring a weekend programme of Book Club, author talks including a Nature Panel with Louisa Adjoa Parker and Kim Squirrell, Brian Chikwava talks about novel Shamisa, and there’s spoken word and music on Saturday night with a stellar line up of poets: Jhalak Prize listed Zakirye, Phoenix Yemi, and Poet De La Soil. On Sunday writer’s workshops with Malcolm Richards, and a kids workshop with Asha Ali and Dinah Salah Al Din. Everyone is welcome, and we hope you can come.

Here, festival co-producers Asha and Kate talk about how Echoes came about.

The Past: Our Roots

In 2020 we began working together, along with Malcolm. Asha had just co-founded Roots Resistance. Kate had launched an edition of the Africa Writes festival in Bristol the previous year. Malcolm with Charlie was opening Bookbag, a new independent bookshop in Exeter. We began planning an Exeter-based festival and launched our first Africa Writes Book Club online (due to the pandemic) featuring authors including Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Maaza Mengiste, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, and Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Since then, we’ve delivered three successful 3-day festivals. We’ve programmed book launches, panel discussions, workshops for young people, poetry, music, and film. We’ve hosted Irenosen Okojie, JJ Bola, Diana Evans, Travis Alabanza, Varaidzo and more across multiple venues.

Through this work, we grew networks. Africa Writes - Exeter became a true community festival. There are too many people to thank here: attendees, writers, and local organisations all supported us - from showing up for talks; to putting up posters, and inviting their friends and families.

We’re so grateful to Africa Writes and the Royal African Society for trusting us with their name. Their support enabled us to start the journey which has led to Echoes, a celebration of Black creativity. We’ll produce year-round events, an inclusive, joyful literature festival, and hope to build lasting community connections for our area.

Asha Ali and Kate Wallis, Echoes Festival co-producers, 2026

Thank you In Exeter

Next Saturday, if you’re feeling the football, could there be a better alternative than spoken word & music from some amazing poets with a friendly, relaxed crowd?

Independent Bookshop Week | 13–20 June
 
This is Bookbag’s fifth Independent Bookshop Week, we’re excited, you can get excited, and it’s a good week to come through & support your local independent bookshop.

We open the week with a free drop-in event for children as graphic novelist and creator of Alan, , works a shift in the bookshop, meeting children, doodling, and signing books. The week continues with the launch of , a new festival featuring a weekend programme of a book club, author talks, spoken word, and film.

We also have 50 × £5 National Book Tokens to the first 50 visitors during the week.

For those new here, Bookbag is an independent bookshop with a select range of books with a local/global feel across fiction, non-fiction, nature, art, zines, and children’s books, with love for independent publishers & personalised recommendations.

We host a range of events for all ages and recently received a Penguin Bookshop Grant to support a series of book events in local schools.

Located in McCoys Arcade in Exeter’s indie West Quarter, we can also order any title on request, alongside offering book subscriptions.

Weekend reading: a tense thriller set on an oil rig & a story inspired by real events in At Sea.

A short story collection by a major new voice in Irish writing, the personal and political in Every One Still Here.

The Lost Folk new in paperback, the forgotte past and emerging future of folk.

An ultimate anthology of arcade gaming, and Eastern European veg-forward recipes
Don’t say we ain’t got range. Visit our bookshop in Exeter for your bank holiday reading today & Sunday, or browse online!

Three children’s books from 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Epic Welsh fairy tales from long ago tell of the spaces between the Real World and the Otherworld in The Mab, retold by authors like and , and each has a Welsh translation by its side, by

In The Twelve, Libby disappears on the stroke of midnight on Winter Solstice and only her sister & a mysterious boy remember she ever existed. Danger and secrets, by Liz Hyder

The Candleman is a classic from
Meurig’s soul is trapped in a small white candle, and if the candle burns out, they will die. Only river-goddess Hafren can help - but you do not want to mess with her. Eerie and terrifying.

This April, as part of a cultural exchange organised by Bookbag joins Tartu (Estonia), Krakow (Poland) Kozhikode (India), and UK cities Edinburgh, Norwich and Nottingham to host a Melboune-based writer in residence.

Bookseller Sirisha has been getting to know Claire, whose work focuses on war trophies and the political economy of memory, her broader writing engaging questions about veterans’ and Indigenous peoples’ voices in Australia’s commemorative culture. Claire is also an award-winning visual artist and poet, and her work is tied to both Country and her research. Being neuro-divergent also shapes Claire’s writing. You can read the first piece, Finding Humanity in a World That Moves Too Fast, on our blog (link in bio) and more writing and poetry throughout the month.

Thank you Claire, and to for sharing the original opportunity last year!

Join us for an in-bookshop event with writer and activist Ben Rawlence, author of The Treeline and launching new book Think Like A Forest.

Ben first began writing to his eldest daughter before she was born, sharing what it means to raise children in a changing world. Twelve years later, these letters tell the story of one father’s attempt to navigate the contradiction of raising children within an economic system that seems hostile to all life, and not only humans.

Climate change poses a fundamental challenge to parenting. What knowledge should we pass on? What future are we preparing our children for?

In the book Rawlence, and his daughters, remind us that learning to see the world through a child’s eyes might hold the key to how we parent, how we live, and even to the future of our planet.

Ben will be signing copies after the discussion.

Tickets are £5 / £22 including the book via our website / link in bio / on eventbrite

Independent bookshop author event / nature writing / climate

We’re open today long weekenders 📕

Independent bookshop
Exeter