The beginning

Having been employed to organise literary stages at various festivals e.g Latitude, In The City, Crime Scene and The Carling Weekend Festival it was my ambition to promote my own literary festival and I was looking for the perfect location and the perfect format.

The "eureka" moment came when casually watching television and Neil Morrissey's diy advert came on. What was ironic was that I had known the village all my life and my uncle Phil Richards had kept the Cross Inn public house from the 1940's to the 1960's yet I'd never thought of Laugharne with it's rich literary heritage as a place to do a literary festival.

I then contacted my friend and Cardiff author John Williams to discuss the idea with him and we looked into the logistics of doing a festival and were amazed at how good the infrastructure was with good venues, easy transport links, plentiful accommodation and some wonderful restaurants and bars.

Tribute to the spirit of Dylan

We wanted the festival to celebrate Welsh/Celtic literature as well as cult writers, outlaw voices and young musicians.

We wished to pay tribute to the spirit of Dylan Thomas rather than a direct tribute to the man. While Dylan is still thought of primarily as a poet he was also a great short story writer, a film script writer and was rumoured to be planning to work with Stravinsky.

Since his death you have had Bob Dylan changing his name to honour the man and what is often acknowledged to be the best British jazz album "Under Milk Wood" by Stan Tracey was based on Dylan's most famous work.

In the last year we have had a television motor car advert based on the beginning of "Under Milk Wood" and the country's best race horse is called Dylan Thomas.

The Laugharne Weekend Festival wished to encapsulate all of these things.

The first festival

For the first festival we approached mainly Welsh people who knew the village and could see the appeal of the festival.

A drink with Keith Allen in The Groucho Club led to a chance meeting with his brother Kevin who came up with the idea of doing a script reading of the film "Twin Town" which he had directed.

The film's main star Rhys Ifans said he was up for it and the rest of the cast quickly agreed.

The first festival covered Welsh Literature (Rachel Trezise , Owen Sheers) Welsh film (Rhys Ifans, Keith Allen), Welsh music (Meic Stevens, Deke Leonard, Richard James) and of course rugby in the shape of the immortal JPR Williams who was interviewed in the Millennium Hall.

The first festival was well attended but the response to the festival was truly amazing.

The success of the first festival led to larger names wanting to play the second festival and the Dylan Thomas connection was hugely important in attracting both Patti Smith and Roger McGough.

Tickets for the 2008 festival went on sale on February 8 and initial sales have been extremely positive. Lastly I would like to thank local businesses for their encouragement and support.

Richard Thomas