The award-winning Huddersfield Literature Festival returns this spring with a blended programme of online and venue-based events.
The festival will run from March 24 to April 3 with a theme of ‘One World’, focusing on our shared responsibility for the wellbeing of our planet and its people.
Established in 2006, the festival was launched to offer a diverse programme of author talks, workshops, discussion topics, performance poetry, multi-arts performances, wellbeing projects, events for young people and family-friendly events.
The 2022 programme has a wealth of headline acts, including:
In Conversation with Dr John Cooper Clarke
The Poet Laureate of Punk, Bard of Salford, fashion icon, TV and radio presenter, social and cultural commentator will be interviewed by Johnny Green, the former road manager of The Clash to discuss stories from his rock ‘n’ roll and performing career, along with his encyclopaedic take on popular culture over the centuries.
Don’t Ask the Dragon – Lemn Sissay & Greg Stobbs
Festival Patron and No1 best-selling author Lemn Sissay will be showcasing his debut children’s book ‘Don’t Ask the Dragon’ with illustrator Greg Stobbs. Lemn’s first-ever children’s book is a fun and heart-warming story featuring Alem, a young boy who goes on an adventure to search for a place to celebrate his birthday.
Landscape and Setting with Joanne Harris and Rupert Thomson
Award-winning authors Joanne Harris and Rupert Thomson discuss ideas around place, landscape and belonging in their work – from French village life in Joanne Harris’s Chocolat series and northern England in A Narrow Door (the latest in her St Oswald’s Grammar School series) to various locations in Rupert Thomson’s novels, from Florence, Paris, Mexico and Amsterdam to his latest Barcelona Dreaming.
The festival will also present a range of family activities, in-person and online events, along with special community projects, workshops and a chance for aspiring writers to pitch their work to publishers.
Other key performers will include musician Sarah Jay Hawley, music journalist Pete Paphides, Annapurna Indian Dance, actor Adrian Lukis, forensic scientist Professor Angela Gallop, and crime writers RC Bridgestock and Jonathan Hall.
Online events will feature Young Women’s Trust ambassador Toni Tone, Paralympian and Dancing on Ice finalist Libby Clegg, best-selling thriller writer Erin Kelly and a discussion on decolonising your bookshelf with the editors of This is the Canon, Joan Anim-Addo, Deirdre Osborne & Kadija Sesay.
The Stafflex Free Family Day will return to North Huddersfield Trust School, with a host of stalls and activities, and the festival will also run venue-based and online activities for families with special needs and disabilities.
The festival will take over a Temporary Contemporary Hub in the Piazza in Huddersfield, launching with a Free Family Preview on Saturday March 5, to be opened by Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin and featuring a Meet and Greet with Julia Donaldson’s gentle dragon Zog and a visit from Grandad Wheels, with a ‘Design a Futuristic Wheelchair’ competition.
Festival director Michelle Hodgson said: “Our 2022 programme showcases a wide representation of voices and events, with activities for all the family and events with diverse and upcoming performers as well as major names.
“After a challenging couple of years, we’re hoping that audiences will find plenty to enjoy and experience, whether online or in-person.”
Find the full 2022 programme and book tickets: https://www.huddlitfest.org.uk/
