Marlborough LitFest returns for its 13th year in 2022 from 29 September – 2 October, with over 40 events taking place in the historic market town over the festival weekend. LitFest aims to champion new, upcoming writers, as well as established authors to its audience as well as encourage a love of reading in children and young people in the local area. This year’s festival programme provides a mix of prizewinning authors, debut writers and literary events for all ages and genres, with fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s authors, workshops, outreach events and LitFest’s annual Big Town Read all be on offer. The line-up includes 2022 Golding Speaker, Ali Smith, as well as Kamila Shamsie, Patrick Gale, Pam Ayres, Clover Stroud, Max Hastings, Benedict Allen and children’s author Jacqueline Wilson.
Local schoolchildren from Marlborough St Mary’s primary school will officially launch LitFest 2022 with their now annual literary-themed musical performance outside the Town Hall in Marlborough on Thursday 29 September. Sixth-formers from St John’s Academy in Marlborough will hold a debate in the Town Hall later in the afternoon on the subject of love and jealousy in literature.
LitFest is passionate about encouraging a love of reading in children. It provides a number of annual free events with children’s authors to local schools and this year Maz Evans, author of the Vi Spy and the Who Let the Gods Out series, will be entertaining Year 5 and 6 pupils from Pewsey and surrounding villages, whilst Catherine Johnson, author of historical novel Freedom and true story Race to the Frozen North, will be inspiring Year 5 and 6 pupils from the Marlborough area. The 2022 LitFest Big School Read for local secondary school children, hosted at St John’s Academy in Marlborough, is Simon James Green, one of the UK’s leading writers of LGBTQ+ teen fiction. During the festival, under-5s will be treated to interactive storytelling and live drawing with award-winning author and illustrator, Morag Hood, at The White Horse Bookshop, while award-winning children’s author, Tracey Corderoy, will be chatting about The Story Shop: Blast Off!, to 5-8 year-olds. Bestselling children’s author Jacqueline Wilson wrote her first novel at just nine years old and has now written over 100 books. She will share her writing tips and talk about her latest book, Project Fairy at the Memorial Hall, Marlborough College.
Marlborough LitFest runs an annual competition with local primary schools. This year 16 local schools have taken part in the Platinum Jubilee-themed competition, which invited children to write a story using words or pictures, about the theme of ‘The Day the Queen Came to Stay’. Six prizes of £25 book tokens each will be given to the winning entries courtesy of sponsor Haine & Smith, the opticians in Marlborough. Prizes will be given out during the LitFest weekend.
LitFest would like to thank its sponsors for 2022: lead sponsor Sarah Raven, main event sponsor Hiscox Insurance, and event sponsors William Golding Limited, Robert Hiscox, Adam Matthew Digital, St Francis School, Marlborough College, Marlborough.news and Hamilton Trust, as well as our patron Sir Simon Russell Beale, and partners Katharine House Gallery, Haine & Smith Opticians, The White Horse Bookshop and Wiltshire Life for their continued support for the festival.
For more information, visit www.marlboroughlitfest.org