Manchester Literature Festival 2017 at various venues

The 12th annual Manchester Literature Festival is now well underway, and many events have sold out – but fear not, there are still some tickets for you to get your mitts on.

And it’s well worth doing so – we’ve already taken in some great one-offs, including the first MLF event this year at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation: an affecting reading from Booker Prize longlistee Jon McGregor, incorporating an atmospheric soundscape amplified by audience members’ phones. We’ve also enjoyed poetry on film courtesy Bloodaxe in Central Library’s events space and actor Timothy West reading Russian masterpieces alongside operatic snippets at the brand-new Stoller Hall. Not to mention poet Zaffar Kunial (pictured) responding to the Raqib Shaw exhibition as part of Whitworth Lates…

MLF 2017 takes place until 22 October, with Bookend events throughout the year, including with Armistead Maupin, Rebecca Solnit in conversation with Jeanette Winterson, old pals Jackie Kay and Ali Smith, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan on 15 November (read our preview here). One of five special commissions – the Castlefield Manchester Sermon by Michael Morpurgo – will also be rescheduled for performance in the Cathedral next spring.

Rocking up in venues all over the city, we’re looking forward to some poetry in the dying embers… world-renowned poet Michael Symmons Roberts at Central Library and Poets Of The New Generation at Gorilla, featuring Raymond Antrobus, OmiKemi Natacha Bryan, Yoni Sode and Karen McCarthy Woolf.

So there’s plenty still to get excited about! Some events are free, some are ticketed – check the MLF website for full details and how to book.