Actress and comedienne Helen Lederer is to headline the fifth Bronte Festival of Women’s Writing in Haworth.

The festival, which runs from Friday to Sunday, September 4 to 6, will feature a number of talks at various venues by women authors as well as workshops for writers and a day of family activities at the famous Bronte parsonage.

Helen, who rose to fame with her roles in The Young Ones and Absolutely Fabulous, is a frequent contributor to Woman’s Hour. Also a regular columnist for newspapers and magazines, she produced her debut novel, Losing It, in February this year and it is this work that will form the basis of her talk on Saturday, September 5, at the festival. The novel has already been shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction and The Edinburgh First Book Award 2015.

Helen will be joined at the festival by poet and writer Anne Caldwell, who is to lead a creative writing session inspired by the Bronte collection. Participants will have the opportunity to examine some of the Bronte relics. Anne teaches creative writing at the University of Bolton and has published three books of poetry.

American novelist Alison Case, a professor of English at Williams College in Massachusetts, is to give a lecture on her newly-published work, an original re-telling of the heroic and adored Emily Bronte tale Wuthering Heights. Hailed as a ‘homage’ to Emily, Nelly Dean, is Alison’s first novel. She has previously published two books on 19th century British fiction and poetry. Alison is also leading a workshop for writers wishing to use minor characters from history or literature to produce a new work.

A non-fiction workshop is being held by writer Glynis Charlton, whose own work has been featured in several anthologies.

And the festival winds up on Sunday, September 6, with a free workshop for families at the Bronte Parsonage Museum based around the tiny hand-sewn ‘magazines’ created by the Bronte children.

For details of the festival and to book an event visit www.bronte.org.uk or call 01535 642323.