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Journeys into the "new normal" - back into the world of literature and writing

Hello all! I am back! Welcome to the "new normal" from me. It has been more than four months since I have last written a blog post of any kind, but I finally have the motivation to write about something again - and in this blog post, we are going back to books and authors! Let's get going on this little adventure, starting off with a run-through of the Ipswich Book Festival.  Ipswich Book Festival (4th and 5th of October 2025) As is usual in my blog posts, I would like to start off by giving out some background information about the festival. So, the Ipswich Book Festival was a new book convention that was run to gather together authors, academics and readers and share their experiences about poetry, prose fiction and the more mundane matters that were happening in between. The Ipswich Book Festival ran in a number of different locations across Ipswich from the 3rd to the 5th of October. Nearly all of the events were ticketed, with the price to attend many events ranging ...
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My experiences of the 2025 Business Start-up Bootcamp - Days 4 and 5

Hello, wannabe business owners! Welcome back as we continue the journey through the Business Start-up Bootcamp at the University of Suffolk. From digging into the depths of a social enterprise supporting women, to the most intensive marketing exercise that I have ever managed to attempt to date, this blog post will surely pack a punch more than all of the other writeups that I've managed to do so far! If you haven't yet read my story on the first three days of this amazing event, please check it out here:  Days 1 to 3 Day 4: Diving into the world of social enterprises It was almost 9:30am when I arrived into the Atrium building, waiting to go in to the Bootcamp session. Random chatter and more participants turning up along the way, and we're off on the journey, and after going through the introductions to our business ideas, the session started off by explaining the basic social entrepreneurship principles, before going on to do an interactive exercise where we had to guess...

My experiences of the 2025 Business Start-up Bootcamp - Days 1 to 3

Hello all and welcome back! After going through the DiscoveReads book festival at the Hold (and more specifically, Amanda's workshop) to prepare myself mentally for the next big thing, that big thing is finally here, one week after the book festival - the Business Start-up Bootcamp! So, the June 2025 Bootcamp is a business start-up programme that is run by the Enterprise and Entrepreneurship team at the University of Suffolk. It is set to take place over 12 sessions in the months of May, June and July, with the programme culminating with the grand finale on the 8th of July, where participants will have the chance to pitch for up to £10,000 in funding.  The event takes place on the University Campus, and if you are not familiar with Ipswich (or even the United Kingdom), I am going to show you a picture of the iconic University of Suffolk buildings, located along the waterfront (and it really is stunning!): University of Suffolk campus from the Ipswich Waterfront (August 2021) Day 1:...

Post-Bootcamp Adventures - DiscoveReads Book Festival

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another blogpost from me! With the world of books and creative writing being closely related to the theme of fantasy worlds, I decided that it would be a great idea for me to share with you my fairly action-packed experience of the DiscoveReads book festival.  What is the DiscoveReads book festival? DiscoveReads is an annual book festival that is run by Suffolk Libraries on the bank holiday weekend in May every year. The 2025 festival hosted talks with six famous authors on a wide range of themes, from fictional novels to real-life political issues, as well as creative writing workshops. In addition to the main event being hosted in the Hold, displays featuring each of the books in the main event also appeared in six different libraries around Suffolk, for those who are unable to make it to Ipswich for the main event.  Tickets to attend events at the festival went up for sale on the 17th of April, with early bird sales running up until the 1...

Post-Bootcamp Adventures - Navigating the realm of Ipswich Thrive business events

Wow... it's been a while since I have made a post about how things have been getting on with my business idea... but I am back again, and it is time to present to you my experiences of attending a few events from the Ipswich Thrive programme! There is loads of fun to be had in both the events that I had attended, and so I hope you will read through the whole post to the end.  About Ipswich Thrive Business Week Ipswich Thrive was a series of events that revolved around celebrating the successes of local business and encouraging entrepreneurship and professional development in the area. Ipswich Thrive was organised by Ipswich Borough Council, with events taking place between the 10th and the 18th of March 2025 at a wide range of venues across the Ipswich area.  Over 20 different business and careers services, and government departments were involved in running the events contained within the programme, including the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the University of Suffo...