Former Bard of Exeter, Mantie Lister, will appear at Sidmouth Sea Fest at noon tomorrow (Saturday) to help publicise the town’s literary festival.

Mantie will join organisers of Sun, Sea & Books, on their stall at the Ham, where free copies of the festival programme will be available, together with the chance to pen a poem.

Mantie, who began writing at university, where she went on to gain an MA in creative and critical writing, has been published in Obsessed with Pipework, Creative Inc. and was shortlisted for the Cinnamon Press Poetry Prize.

Last year she was elected the Bard of Exeter and during her time as bard, ran community writing projects for children and adults, writing workshops for local schools, helped to judge Exeter City Futures Poetry Competition and wrote commissioned poems for The Rotary Club and The Double Elephant Printing Press.

Mantie will be guest poet at Sidmouth Literary Festival’s prize-giving event at Sidmouth Library on Monday, June 6, from 6pm, when winners of the festival’s poetry competition will be announced.

The event will be hosted by Mark Chapman, of Paragon Books.

Afterwards, at Sidmouth Rugby Club, performance poet Matt Harvey will entertain from 7.30pm. Tickets for this are £10, available from Winstone’s.

There will be leaflets giving details about the poetry competition, which has categories for children and adults, at Sea Fest and its closing date is May 18. Book token prizes will be given to winners.

Read more about Sea Fest on page 25.