A literary magazine that features poetry, prose, essays, translations, interviews and reviews is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a weekend festival next month.  The Tears in the Fence festival will be held at the White Horse, Stourpaine, Dorset, on 24-26 October.

David Caddy, pictured, editor of Tears in the Fence, said: “When Harry Seccombe and I began touting a literary magazine called Green Views in the summer of 1984, poetry magazines were dominated by men and there were no creative writing degrees in the UK, let alone the concept of a career poet, although the signs of the downside of academic poetry was clearly visible in the US.

“Unhappy with our working title, we brainstormed our aims and objectives one evening and arrived at the deliberately ambiguous Tears in the Fence. That afternoon I had been deeply impressed by the radical questioning of a visitor. Sarah Hopkins, resplendent in blues and purples, was a Greenham Common activist, poetry and fiction editor at Spare Rib, about to publish with the Women’s Press. My head was buzzing. I was angry with a local landowner who had fenced off several public rights of way and joined with Ruth Colyer, a public spaces campaigner, to start fighting back. Together with Harry’s ecological concerns, a literary magazine for the Green movement was born. Sarah joined us the following week.

“We were internationalist, feminist and green with a tinge of modernism from the start. We had the good luck to make Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner twice, and to quickly establish a clear identity. Overseas subscriptions and the number of women contributors grew with every issue. We were soon selling out our print runs of 600 copies.”

At the festival there will be readings, talks, discussion, bookstalls, displays, music, a festival supper and open readings. Speakers will include Anthony Barnett, Ian Brinton, Sarah Crewe, Jennifer K Dick, Carrie Etter, John Freeman, Cora Greenhill, Lucy Hamilton, Jeff Hilson, Peter Hughes, Norman Jope, Dorothy Lehane, Pansy Maurer-Alvarez, Chris McCabe and Steve Spence. There will also be a celebration of Dylan Thomas's centenary.