Litfest 2025 at various venues and online

One of the oldest literature festivals in the country, Lancaster Literature Festival, or Litfest to its friends, has been bringing an exciting and varied programme to audiences since 1978.

Following the main festival in March, Litfest is back with a special Autumn Weekend, welcoming writers, poets, storytellers, filmmakers and graphic novelists, and running 17 to 21 October, with nature taking centre stage – indeed, Simon Armitage is going to be discussing poetry and land at a special bonus date on 18 November.

On 18 and 19 October, Lancashire’s landscape and seascape feed into stories as folklore and fairy tales, historical settings and past lives are explored, and there will also be plenty of opportunity to find out more about the processes of creation. Mollie Ray and Helen Bate will be chatting with Jake Hope on writing without words and how the graphic novel format allows them to treat challenging topics with wit and sensitivity. Speculative fiction writer Oliver K Langmead, whose new book City of All Seasons was co-written with Aliya Whiteley, and MK Hardy – “the pen name for two geeky women living and writing together in Scotland”, says their website – will be delving into the art of co-writing and performing in pairs. And children’s author Lucy Strange will be talking about her retelling of Frankenstein and sharing top tips and writing secrets that might inspire you.

Meanwhile, internationally renowned British-Chinese author and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo has reimagined Herman Melville’s 19th-century classic Moby Dick and she will be discussing Call Me Ishmaelle on 20 October (online), then, on 21 October, delivering the fifth Lancaster International Fiction Lecture (online and in person).

Before that, the Autumn Weekend blows into the city on 17 October with a ferocious, mischievous Cumbrian wind that is the subject of acclaimed and award-winning author Sarah Hall’s major new novel, Helm. Set in the Eden Valley, Helm is the tale of a unique life force which buffets the rugged northern landscape and the resilient souls who live there, described by The Guardian as: “A mighty epic of climate change in slow motion.” The novel has been 20 years in the making, so this Autumn Weekend opener (also available to join online) is the perfect opportunity to find out more. Sarah Hall is the author of six novels, including Haweswater, The Wolf Border and Burntcoat, and three short-story collections, including The Sudden Traveller. She has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize twice and is the only author to win the prestigious BBC National Short Story Award twice. She teaches at the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing.

More wolves are promised on 18 October, when the poetry double bill brings together award-winning poets Yvonne Reddick and Liam Bates to read from work about people, places and landscape. Yvonne Reddick – who won the Laurel Prize for Best First Collection of Ecopoetry with her debut collection Burning Season (Bloodaxe, 2023) and the Mslexia Magazine Pamphlet Competition with Translating Mountains (Seren, 2017) – will take you on a journey across the shifting sands of Morecambe Bay and through Arnside and Silverdale. Morecambe-based Liam Bates won a Northern Writers’ Award for Poetry in 2023 and two of his pamphlets and his first collection are published by Broken Sleep Books.

Then in November, the UK’s Poet Laureate and Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds Simon Armitage will be reading from his most recent three collections Blossomise, Dwell and the brand-new full collection New Cemetery and discussing them with Forward Prize-winning poet Kim Moore, as Litfest teams up with Lancaster Arts to host him at the Nuffield Theatre on the Lancaster University campus. Simon Armitage’s collections of poetry have received numerous prizes and awards, and he writes extensively for television, radio and theatre, and is the author of novels and bestselling non-fiction. Kim Moore teaches poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University and is the author of two prize-winning collections of poetry, The Art of Falling and All the Men I Never Married, plus  the books What The Trumpet Taught Me and Are You Judging Me Yet? Poetry and Everyday Sexism.

Most of Litfest’s Autumn Weekend 2025 will take place at one of the partner venues The Storey, Lancaster Central Library and Lancaster University, so you can attend in person – check the Litfest website for full details of what is on where. You are also able to join two events – Sarah Hall and the Lancaster International Fiction Lecture – via the livestream on Crowdcast or watch at a later date on catch-up, so if you aren’t able to make it to Lancaster, you can still get involved. The Litfest International Fiction Book Club with Xiaolu Guo is only available online. Please check the Litfest website for full details of how to take part.