The theme of next year’s Huddersfield Literature Festival will be Into The Future.
The festival will run from March 5-15 and organisers are in the early stages of putting the line-up together.
With several well-known personalities and writers penning titles for publication this autumn and next spring, festival organisers are already putting in bids with publishers for a major name to appear at Huddersfield Town Hall following this year’s popular In Conversation event with internationally-renowned journalist Kate Adie.
The festival attracted around 1,000 people to Huddersfield University this year for a celebration of the Japanese genre of storytelling, art and Cosplay (costumed role play) and is expected to grow in size and stature for 2015.
The Huddersfield Manga, Anime and Comic Con will return with a new name: Majikkon, and will be held on Saturday, March 7.
The groundbreaking Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender event, Polari Up North, will also be back with novelist Paul Burston as master of ceremonies and a new set of authors and poets presenting their work as will the Literary Afternoon Tea which proved such a hit this year, and an event with local bestselling novelist Joanne Harris who lives in Huddersfield.
As well as author talks and storytelling there will be a wider range of writing workshops, performance poetry and lectures – and there are plans for a brand new anarchic poetry slam event.
As a precursor to the festival, there will be a free family day on Saturday February 28, to mark 150 years since the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Festival Director Michelle Hodgson said: “The feedback from this year’s festival was overwhelmingly positive with 73% of people who filled in our feedback forms giving the event they attended the top rating of ‘excellent’.
“Despite this year’s success there are still some people who don’t know that Huddersfield has a literature festival and others who don’t realise the variety of events that we offer, including music and other performance events, most of which are low cost or even free.”
A short film, Highlights of HLF14, showcasing some of this year’s events can be seen on the festival’s YouTube site (http://youtu.be/MBjxdfZ0Rhg) and more information can be found at www.litfest.org.uk .
Anyone wanting to receive festival updates should send their name and email address to huddlitfest@gmail.com. Information on Majikkon is at: www.majikkon.com
