Litfest 2024 at various venues and online

Lancaster’s annual literature festival is back, celebrating 45 years with a full programme as spring unfurls – and with it the fabulously accessible chance to come along either in person or virtually from 15 to 26 March.

From fiction, poetry and nature writing to history, ideas and storytelling, Litfest is the place to discover new works and explore topical issues. Once again being run as a hybrid event, you can book an in-person spot to one of the welcoming Lancaster venues (check the programme before setting off) or you can join online via Litfest’s online streaming platform Crowdcast – whichever suits you and wherever you are in the world! Tickets are free or choose Pay What You Can (“Donation” on Eventbrite; recommended price of £5) – donations are gratefully accepted.

Prose will be explored in depth on Sunday 17 March, when SFF writer and Lancaster University lecturer Oliver J Langmead will be chatting to author Okechukwu Nzelu about his books Here Again Now and the Betty Trask Award-winning The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney, and poet-turned-novelist Andrew McMillan will be talking about his freshly out debut Pity to Lancaster University lecturer in creative writing Zoe Lambert.

This year’s theme is ‘Connected Histories’, which Sathnam Sanghera will address in the inaugural Lancaster History Lecture, presented in partnership with Lancaster University, drawing on his new book Empireworld and discussing the legacies of the British Empire. Josephine Quinn will explore How the World Made the West (rather than the other way round) while David Kynaston will take audiences back to the mid-Sixties with his latest book A Northern Wind.

Poetry takes centre stage on the final weekend, when Poet in Residence Hannah Lowe – whose latest collection, The Kids, won the Costa Poetry Award and the Costa Book of the Year 2021, was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize – will compère a gala poetry reading from the Histories Poetry Map, with contributions from selected contributing poets. The ever-popular poetry schedule (Saturday 23 March, The Storey) will also feature 2023 King’s Poetry Medal winner Mimi Khalvati, Eric Gregory Award winner Emily Hasler, Northern Writers Award winner Mark Pajak and Don Paterson, who has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, all three Forward Prizes and the TS Eliot Prize (twice).

Eoghan Walls – who teaches English literature and creative writing at the University, and has published two poetry collections with Seren, The Salt Harvest and Pigeon Songs, and the novel The Gospel of Orla (Seven Stories) – will be hosting a special poetry pamphlet event featuring 10 readers from a public callout, each presenting their new or in-progress short collections.

Younger members of the family are also catered for, with a Family Story Hunt as well as the inaugural weekend’s Children’s Festival, featuring the likes of Matt Goodfellow and Sophie Anderson, this year’s Litfest Reader in Residence.