Ramsgate Lit Fest 26 · Closing Event · Saturday 30 May
Closing the festival with a love letter to the Kent landscape
The Book
Fusing science, poetry, history and a deep love of landscape, Flint is a heartfelt tribute to the extraordinary 'biogenic' rock that has been part of human development for three million years — and which shaped the very landscape of Kent. Made from the remains of plankton and sea sponges, second only in hardness to a diamond, used to make fire and hung as protection against thunderbolts and fairies: flint is magical, and Joanne Bourne has been in awe of it as long as she can remember.
The Closing Event
The perfect ending to a week of books — an intimate evening of readings, stories and a deep love of place
The Evening
Flint: A Lithic Love Letter features two chapters set right here on the Isle of Thanet — and for the closing event of Ramsgate Lit Fest 26, Joanne will read from both of them, bringing the landscape of this corner of Kent vividly and affectionately to life.
She will talk about her deep love of Ramsgate and the Isle of Thanet, and how the town and its extraordinary coastline have inspired and shaped her writing. It promises to be a warm, generous, and utterly transportive evening — the ideal end to a week of books.
Joanne will be happy to sign copies of Flint after the event. Books will be available to purchase on the night.
On the Night
Joanne is a storyteller as much as an author — warm, funny, and deeply knowledgeable. She will read extracts from the two Thanet chapters of Flint, share the stories behind them, and open the floor for questions and conversation.
This is the kind of evening that makes you want to lace up your boots the next morning and head out to the beach — which, if you're staying at The Book Hotel, is exactly what you can do.
Joanne Bourne at the Ness of Brodgar, Orkney
The Thanet Chapters
Joanne will read from both chapters and share the stories behind them
Chapter One
A Christmas morning sunrise walk along the coast from Ramsgate to Dumpton Gap, in search of an enigmatic flint formation on the beach. Part nature writing, part love letter, part treasure hunt — a walk that captures what it feels like to know a landscape intimately, in its most quiet and luminous hour.
Chapter Two
A journey to Richborough Roman Fort, once one of the greatest towns ever built in Roman England, to discover what remains and what the flint in its walls has to tell us. Where geology meets history, and a stone becomes a witness to millennia of human ambition and endeavour on the Kent coast.
What the Critics Say
"Fascinating, evocative and absorbing — Flint is an absolute joy."Lara Maiklem, author of Mudlarking
"This quirky, enchanting ramble around the flintscapes of south-east England tells the nigh-mystical story of a stone that has, with quiet majesty, borne witness to all human history."Daily Telegraph
"Lyrical, wise, whimsical, sparky as the ancient fire-starter itself."Saga Magazine
"Vivid, personal, upbeat — makes you feel her happiness."Maggie Gee
"The most readable book on the earth sciences that I have met in 2024."Geology Today
"Bourne's enchanting narrative and personal anecdotes bring to life the magic and enduring significance of a stone that has shaped human civilisation for millennia."Alastair Humphreys, author of Local
About the Author
Joanne Bourne is a writer, photographer and archaeologist, born and raised on the North Downs of West Kent, where she still lives. She has combined a career in publishing with archaeological fieldwork, excavating Neolithic and multi-period sites in Dalmatia, Libya and latterly Orkney, where she has spent nine summers with the Ness of Brodgar team.
Her great love is the chalk downland of her native Kent, and when she can she spends her free time walking and photographing the seasons of its nature and wildlife. That lifelong devotion to the Kent landscape became Flint: A Lithic Love Letter, described by the Daily Telegraph as "a very British love-letter to the beauty of flint."
Jake's Bones, ghost-written with the then eleven-year-old bone collector Jake McGowan Lowe, was shortlisted for the 2015 Royal Society Young People's Book Prize. The Maps Book, published by Lonely Planet Kids in 2023, was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Children's Travel Book of the Year 2024.
Join Joanne Bourne for the closing evening of Ramsgate Lit Fest 26 — an intimate, warm, and utterly transporting love letter to the Kent coast, read aloud in the Waterloo Room of The Book Hotel.
Tickets
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