It was so exciting at the end of April to attend a Christian Literature day in Cheltenham. 

Cheltenham is well known as having one of the first Literature Festivals in the country. The first one was run in 1949, making it now one of the longest-running festivals in the world. However, nowadays, apart from an evening run by the Gloucestershire Writers Network, it has become largely a place to hear the books written (or ghost written) by the world's celebrities and has very little Christian content at all.

The Cheltenham Christian Arts Festival is different. Various events are run over the year as and when there are available resources. This literature day, was, I believe, the first centring on a whole day of literature and what an eclectic mix it was too! From CBeebies star, Gemma Hunt, who began the day entrancing both us and a small group of children with a session of storytelling from her book of parable stories. This book, 'A Good Friend' cleverly used the parables with stories from every day situations accompanied by brilliant illustrations for the 4-7 age range. This was later followed by the local Bishop of Gloucester, the Right Reverend, Rachel Treweek and a retired Bishop. We even had a former genuine gypsy traveller reading to us from his books and a Christian Fiction writer in Sharon Garlough Brown. 

The day concluded with Tola Doll Fisher, the editor of Woman Alive magazine, talking very honestly about her joys and struggles in her book, Still Standing: 100 lessons from an 'Unsuccessful Life', which she was very graciously giving away free along with old copies of the magazine. I am currently using her short exerts as my daily devotionals and finding them very helpful, I would only have to contend with her life being 'unsuccessful'.   

Next time there is such a day in Cheltenham, I really recommend it to other members of the ACW, especially those of you that are fairly local. 

Sheila Johnson lives in Cheltenham and is a qualified journalist who has written for a number of publications both local and national. She has also written two books under her pen name Sheila Donald, Alpha Male and Waireka. Her website can be found at www.journojohnson.com