PLANS for this year’s Huddersfield Literature Festival have taken a big step forward with the announcement of several sponsors for key events.

The festival, which takes place from Thursday to Sunday March 14 to 17, will include events at venues across the town.

Business recovery specialist Begbies Traynor has agreed to sponsor the production of promotional bookmarks and the “In Conversation” event on March 15 with Whitbread Award winner Kate Atkinson.

Holmfirth-based business advisory and accounting firm V&A Bell Brown is sponsoring a similar event the next day featuring Huddersfield-based best-selling author Joanne Harris.

And law firm Wilkinson Woodward, with offices in Huddersfield and Halifax, is sponsoring the festival brochure and an “In Conversation” event on March 17 with novelist and scriptwriter for The League of Gentlemen, Jeremy Dyson.

Richard Armitage, of printing firm PrintPod, based at the Media Centre in Huddersfield, is also supporting the festival and printing the 15,000 brochures that will be distributed in the weeks leading to the festival.

Festival director Michelle Hodgson said: “The support shown by local businesses for the festival has been overwhelming.

“By sponsoring elements of the Huddersfield Literature Festival, they have helped us bring some fantastic events to the town.”

The festival has a few sponsorship opportunities remaining, including an “In Conversation” event with American author Jodi Picoult.

The festival runs from March 14-17 with a pre-festival taster event on March 7, a launch on March 13 and a post-festival event with Jodi Picoult on April 3.

The festival is also supported by local organisations including Huddersfield University, Kirklees Library Services, The Media Centre and Waterstones.

Email michelle@key-words.co.uk, phone 01484 430228 or go to www.litfest.org.

NORTH Kirklees is also to host its first literature festival in September.

The Aspects of Literature, organised by Kirklees Bronte Group, begins with a literary dinner at Healds Hall Hotel, Liversedge, on September 20, which will raise cash for the Hollybank Trust, Mirfield.

The majority of events for the festival, which continues until September 20, take place at The Red House Museum, Gomersal.

They include talks from journalist John Brooke about his book Cruel Lives and Mirfield Town Councillor David Pinder about the Romans as well as entertainment from London jazz singer Val Wiseman.