Sticklers will unite at the PENfro Book Festival this evening (Saturday) as Lynne Truss, best known for her 2003 global bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves, takes to the stage at Rhosygilwen Mansion near Cilgerran.

Literary editor, reviewer, columnist, ground-breaking sports writer, dramatist and broadcaster Lynne wrote the best-selling book that made us all grammar hounds and is one of the star turns at this year’s festival.

Despite writing a string of novels on many different subjects, Lynne is still best known for Eats, Shoots and Leaves – and even she admits it’s hard sometimes.

“I think it’s fair that if you have a best-selling book, people identify you with it,” said Lynne.

“All I’ve done to prevent any further pigeon-holing is not to write another book in the language, which was a disappointment for my publishers, but I was so worried about becoming the Barbara Woodhouse of punctuation that I was determined to muddy the waters as quickly as possible.

“Versatility has always been an important quality to me. It did seem ironic that when I tried yet another genre – a very niche one actually, which I thought would be a very small book in every sense – I woke up to find I was the queen of punctuation and nothing else!” she said.

But despite sparking a flurry of radio phone-ins and letters to newspapers about the British obsession with good grammar and the wince-making shop signs with misplaced apostrophes, Lynne has a fairly relaxed attitude.

“My sympathy for pedants isn’t infinite, but I did write the book out of a sense of their pain so I have a duty to support them. Personally though I don’t always notice misplaced apostrophes. I get much more annoyed by people cycling on pavements or driving too fast.”

Lynne was also one of the first women sportswriters – she spent four years writing about football in the 1990s for The Times and was shortlisted for sportswriter of the year in 1997.

“For four years I allowed myself to think football was important, and I have to say that as someone whose previous career was all about minority stuff like books and art, writing about football was fantastically rewarding, because in terms of newspapers, sport is the winning side. People buy newspapers for the sports coverage not the features about 19th century photography!”

She added: “The life of travelling between nasty press boxes was tiring and annoying and I was incredibly lonely (I wrote a book about it later). But I felt I was doing something quite special and that the subject was a big one.

“I often remember the point when the editor of The Times offered me the job of film critic (I weep to remember this actually) and I turned it down in order to stick with sport.”

Lynne will be headlining the PENfro Book Festival at Rhosygilwen, near Cilgerran, this evening Saturday, September 9, at 7.30pm. So what does she plan to talk about?

“Oooh, I am going to start by talking about punctuation of course! But I will also do a reading of a couple of pieces written for the radio – one a monologue about a woman whose husband doesn’t come home from work one day; the other a set of replies to Christmas newsletters, designed to discourage – and indeed roundly punish – the senders of such newsletters.”

Tickets for Lynne’s talk can be bought online at penfrobookfestival.org.uk