BRIDPORT Literary Festival is gearing up for this year's with a special literary event to celebrate what makes Dorset so special.

The Friends of the Bridport Literary Festival are putting on a Dorset Tea to launch a new book - Deepest Dorset by Fanny Charles and Gay Pirrie-

Weir, with photographs by Katharine Davies and Philip Hartley.

Some of the people who have contributed to the full colour hard-back book of celebration of all that makes the county stand out will be at the event, being held in the Tithe Barn Symondsbury next month..

Poet James Crowden, oral history expert and musicianTim Laycock ,and Marzia Colonna, the Italian-born sculptor and collage artist who describes Dorset as

“England’s Tuscany”, will join writer and journalist Fanny Charles to talk about Thomas Hardy and people who knew him, memories of sheep-shearing and cider-making, contemporary art based on the surrounding landscape -

The writers of Deepest Dorset - Fanny and Gay – hope their launch event will raise funds for the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, Weldmar Hospicecare

Trust, the Dorset Community Foundation and the RNLI.

From beer to boat-building, architecture to archaeology, the book explores the county you think you know and discovers some surprising and fascinating facts which they think people won't know about.

Picture essays include Lyme Regis Boat Building Academy, food and farming campaigner, Jyoti Fernandes of Fivepenny Farm, St. Giles House and the Shaftesburys.

There are contributions in the book from well-known Dorset residents including Kate Adie, Broadchurch creator, Chris Chibnall, novelist Tracy Chevalier and Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellowes ,as well as articles by Dorset-based experts on museums, historic food and folk traditions.

Tickets for the event on October 10 at 2.30pm are £12, to include cream tea and Dorset apple cake, and can be bought in advance from The Bridport Tourist Information Centre 01308 424 901 or on the day at the door.