THE FIRE HILLS by Henry Normal

Henry Normal is a writer, poet, TV & Film producer, founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Literature festival) and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. He is also now a local resident, having recently moved to Fairlight from Brighton.

His discovery of the stunning countryside around this part of the East Sussex coast has inspired many of his recent poems. The result is The Fire Hills and we are delighted that Henry has chosen to read some of the poems from this collection in Hastings on the day of their publication.

It promises to be a wonderful event – as listeners to Henry’s programmes on BBC Radio 4 will know, he is an engaging talker and performer.

The performance will last approximately 40 minutes. It will be followed by a Q and A session, and a book signing.

This is a free event but registration is necessary to reserve your place. Max 2 tickets per order.

More about Henry

Henry first started writing when he joined a writers’ group at his local library in Nottingham. Then, with the help of a £40 a week enterprise allowance scheme award, he started performing his work in front of audiences, anywhere he could – in factories, hospitals even the top deck of buses. And he started touring – opening for bands including Pulp. He also became their tour bus driver!

He was spotted by Channel 4 and moved into television. He co-wrote both the multi-award winning Mrs Merton show and the first series of The Royle Family. In 1990 he set up Baby Cow Productions and produced all, and script edited many, of their shows. His credits include the Oscar nominated film Philomena, I Believe in Miracles, Gavin and Stacey, Marion and Geoff, Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh, Red Dwarf and Alan Partridge. In 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to Television.

He retired in April 2016, and since then has written and performed several shows combining comedy, poetry and stories about family life for BBC Radio 4.

Henry now lives in Fairlight, near Hastings with his wife, the screenwriter Angela Pell (Close to Me, Snow Cake) and their son Johnny.

Henry performs poetry at Literature Festivals around the UK and has written 12 poetry books available from Flapjack Press  including The Fire Hills out on 28 Feb 2023 and Collected Poems Vol.3 which will be published in August.

In 2023 he was invited to become patron of the Hastings Book Festival – a post we are delighted he accepted.

Henry says: 

I am honoured and delighted to be asked to be patron of the Hastings Book Festival. It is already such a well-loved, prestigious event and the plans for the future of the festival are incredibly exciting. I'm looking forward to helping build upon the great work already done to celebrate Hastings as a vibrant and diverse centre of literature.

We will have great pleasure in formally welcoming him to our Bookfest family at his poetry reading on February 28th 2023.