Line up revealed for 2024 Litfest Autumn Weekend

Local and international award winning writers will share the bill in Litfest’s Autumn Weekend.

The 2024 line up includes a series of talks, events and talent showcases, both in person and online, between October 18-25.

It all starts on Friday, October 18, with Jacqueline Harris’s storytelling event Slowing Down to the Speed of Light, with original music by ’cellist Maja Bugge, which explores an adult ADHD diagnosis through a playful and provocative narrative.

On Saturday morning the event heads to Prince Edward Island to revisit childhood in a fun retelling of Anne of Green Gables by Katherine Woodfine, who brings the story to life for younger readers. In the afternoon, the ever-popular Poetry Double-Bill pairs newcomer Camille Ralphs (After You Were, I Am) and veteran Ian Seed (Night Window).

North-West based poets are being invited to submit 20 pages of work to the Pamphlet Poetry competition.

Ten poets will be shortlisted to read from their work, and then judges Ian Duhig and Jane Routh will select three poets for pamphlet publication by Litfest and Wayleave Press, with a launch reading at Litfest 2025.

To enter, go to www.litfest.org/pamphlet-poetry and share your poems by September 28.

On the Saturday evening, Sharon Ruston launches The Notebooks of Humphry Davy – chemist, inventor of the Davy Lamp, and poet. The next day, Jonathan Healey presents The Blazing World, a new history of the world that emerged from the English Civil War in the turbulent seventeenth century.

Sunday and Monday (October 20 and 21) offer three fantastic fiction events, including Catriona Ward, who discusses horror and her new novel Looking Glass Sound with Oliver Langmead; Inés Gregori Labarta talks with Jenn Ashworth about The Three Lives of St Ciarán – stories of hope and salvation in times of darkness and despair; and celebrated Mexican novelist Guadalupe Nettel discusses online her Booker short-listed novel Still Born that challenges traditional ideas of motherhood.

The next day she gives the 2024 Lancaster International Fiction Lecture, a collaboration with Lancaster University, showing how writers turn the pain of human experience – physical, emotional, psychological – into moments of literary gold.

Finally, there is a unique event on October 25, in partnership with Lancaster Arts, as legendary record producer Joe Boyd comes to the Nuffield Theatre to talk about ‘And the Roots of Rhythm Remain’ – the history of global music from Tango and Bossa Nova, through Ravi Shankar and the Beatles, to Fela Kuti and the Buena Vista Social Club.

As always, almost all our events will take place both in-person and live online. Ticket prices (with the exception of the Lancaster Arts event) are being kept at £5 in person and £3 online.

Book your tickets in person at The Dukes on Moor Lane or by going to their website at www.dukeslancaster.org

To find out more about the Litfest Autumn Weekend, visit www.litfest.org or look out for copies of printed programmes in venues and outlets around Lancaster and Morecambe.