News

Huge congratulations to forthcoming Festival speaker Liz Berry who has won the Forward Prize in the category ‘best single poem’. This much coveted award was made for her wonderful poem The Republic of Motherhood which features in her current collection of the same name.  The Forward Prize has played a key role in bringing contemporary poetry…

Now that the holiday season is here and the glorious sunshine is begging to be soaked up in the company of a good book, the Wells Festival of Literature has some wonderful recommendations for your holiday reading. To start with, there is Hannah Fry’s inspirational book Hello World which has just been shortlisted for the 2018…

When Michael and Anne Heseltine were delayed on their way to speak to last October’s Festival audience about the creation of their magnificent garden at Thenford in Northamptonshire, disappointment threatened.  When William and Caroline Waldegrave took to the stage instead, that danger was averted! The Waldegraves know the garden well, having visited it in the…

If you have ever considered becoming a Friend of the Festival, but never quite got round to it, now is definitely the time to act! The countdown to our 2018 Festival has begun, and over the next few weeks we will reveal our speakers and the huge range of subjects they will be covering; this…

As part of the Wells Festival of Literature Education Committee’s programme of work in local schools, the poet AF Harrold visited Hemington School on 20 March. All the children involved in the day’s poetry activities were so inspired by the visit that they joined forces to say ‘thank you’ in verse. This goes to show that…

The Festival venue is moving – to the city’s newest performance facility, Cedars Hall, a comfortable, modern and convenient venue at the heart of Wells. Our aims, however, have not changed. We will continue to celebrate the written word and encourage a love of books and reading.  So the end result will remain the same: an…

Wells Festival of Literature celebrates its 25th Anniversary in October and we are proud to be sharing that celebration, albeit on a longer timescale, with the Reformation and Martin Luther. In October it will be 500 years since Luther famously posted his 95 Theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. In a…

This year we are dedicating two Festival events to two very special Wells Festival of Literature colleagues: Thelma Fisher, who died earlier this year, and Simon Loveday who died last October. The first of these, in memory of Thelma, will take place on Saturday 14 October at 3.30 pm when former Wells Festival of Literature…

As you will see from our special Silver Anniversary brochure which is now widely available, Wells Festival of Literature continues to support a variety of educational projects in the area. The number of children and young people who benefit from this support is growing all the time. Tony Walsh, the poet who has now become…

The programme for the 2017 Silver Anniversary Festival is now complete and we are looking forward to a very special pre-Festival launch when we get off to a glittering start: at 7pm on Friday 29 September Simon Jenkins will be discussing the finest cathedrals in the country – in the finest of them all! We have a huge…