This week's podcast is all about water. As a new literary festival focused on the sea splashes out at Southend-on-Sea, we talk to curator Rachel Lichtenstein about why she and the poet Lemn Sissay decided to embark on such an event.
We're joined by Iain Sinclair to discuss why the sea has such a powerful place in literature, and how it is water that connects his beloved east end of London with the rest of the world. We also listen in to a theatre production of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which is being restaged at the festival with local schoolchildren.
Then we head inland to board the Book Barge, a floating bookshop which is plying the canals of England throughout the summer.
