Celebrating all of the positive things about Swindon and shining a light on its hidden gems is at the heart of the Switch on to Swindon campaign. One of those gems is the annual Festival of Literature, now in its 25th year, and last week Festival Director Matt Holland unveiled this year’s programme.

Yet again there is a packed programme and for a fortnight in May there will be authors and events daily, at midday, teatime, and in the evening, carefully spaced and placed to enable people to attend as many as possible.

From humble beginnings, a poetry reading and residential writing weekend at Lower Shaw Farm the festival has grown over the last 25 years into an event that celebrates local talent while attracting well respected literary figures from all over the world to Swindon.

Switch on to Swindon is delighted to support the festival and in particular we are pleased to have partnered up to present an event on May 15 at 6.30pm at the Arts Centre, billed as a must for anyone who cares about their own town or city – which clearly we do!

What’s going on in our towns and our cities today and what part do we play in it? What is their identity, culture, and distinctiveness? Is the anytime, any place, anyone, anywhere phenomenon the new norm? Do we need to invent a new and meaningful cultural anchorage in our sprawling urban landscape? How can we all be more switched on to what our own town or city has to offer? These are just some of the questions explored by Charles Landry, inventor of the Creative City concept and author of The Art of City Making. It’s incredibly relevant for our campaign so I look forward to seeing lots of our ambassadors at this event.

The festival runs from May 7-18 in multiple venues across the town and thoroughly deserves to be supported by local people and businesses. For all the latest news, details of events and how to buy tickets go to www.swindonfestivalofliterature.co.uk

“Our founding spirit is rooted in love of the word, good reading, exploratory talk, finding out about things, making connections, and the notion that life is for learning, and pleasure too.” This is how Matt Holland describes the festival so how appropriate that last week also saw the launch of an important new initiative – Swindon Learning Town.

Put simply this initiative aims to raise the aspirations of everyone living in Swindon, whatever their age. Much like the approach we have taken with Switch on to Swindon the plan is to do this by engaging the whole community in a campaign to improve education in the borough, recognising its value and importance economically, socially and culturally.

Swansea and Bristol are the first cities in the UK to join UNESCO’s global initiative on the development of Learning Cities and Swindon aims to be the first town to do so. Launched last week at Swindon Academy this is the beginning of something that we all have a vested interest in contributing to.

Businesses, organisations, parents, teachers, young people all have a role to play in making that sure that learning, and the enjoyment of learning is right at the heart of everything we do. Find out how you can get involved at www.swindonlearningtown.com