Best-selling author Tricia Stewart, the original Calendar Girl (played by Helen Mirren in the film of the same name), will join the Socially Shared team at their Meet the Author event in Kenilworth this weekend.

The incentive to support local female authors will be held in the church hall of St Francis of Assisi, Warwick Road, Kenilworth, on Saturday, October 19, 2024, between 11am and 3pm.

Socially Shared Business Support Network is "proud to support local female authors" in the community and the Warwickshire and West Midlands area through its Online Bookshop and events.

The selection includes fiction, nonfiction, cookbooks, poetry, and children's books.

The Meet the Author event aims to bring together authors, readers, and local women in business for the opportunity to meet up socially, shop safely, and network.

Authors will showcase their books, and visitors will have a chance to chat and purchase signed copies.

Organisers said: "We are also delighted to welcome Loretta Milan from the Origineurs Podcast and Shelley Wilson, Writing Mentor, who are the headline sponsors for this event, along with Romantic Novelists' Association award-winning author Suzanne Lissaman and TedX speakers Wendy Garcarz and Jules White, who are among the exhibiting authors."

Entry to this event is free, with refreshments available for a small charge at the venue.

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Adults and children are welcome and encouraged to enter our Scavenger Hunt and Dinosaur Trail competitions with national book token prizes to be won!

Interested parties can register for a free ticket here.  

Tricia Stewart

Tricia was born in Sunderland, trained as a diagnostic radiographer, moved to Cracoe in the Yorkshire Dales in 1985, and joined the local WI.

Tricia suggested an alternative WI calendar as a joke in 1997, but the idea returned only when John Baker was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in February 1998.

The Alternative WI calendar launched on April 12, 1999, in John's memory.

Originally, 1,000 were printed, but eventually, 88,000 sold in the first year. In 2000 the calendar went to America to sell a further 340,000 copies.

The movie Calendar Girls premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in 2003, and in 2008, the stage play opened and ran for three years, raising £750,000 for Blood Cancer UK.

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The musical, Calendar Girls, written by Tim Firth and Gary Barlow opened in Leeds, then toured 37 venues. Covid prevented a US tour.

In her book Calendar Girl', she tells this story in her own words and covers the 25 years since the launch of the Alternative WI Calendar.