• Pick of popular scientists

    Science writers Masud Husain and Tim Minshall, both speakers at this year’s Festival, have been picked for the shortlist of a prestigious award for popular science writing. They are among just six writers selected from 254 entries in the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize for 2025. The shortlisted titles represent the judges’ pick of…

  • Football season kicks off

    As the football season kicks off this month, the Festival is delighted to host two of the sports greatest fans. Author Simon Kuper, who has attended every World Cup since 1990, will be discussing the biggest sporting competition on earth with well-known BBC Radio Somerset sports presenter Charlie Taylor. Kuper’s new book World Cup Fever is…

  • Royal Revelations

    Searing revelations about Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson have stirred up a storm of interest in biographer Andrew Lownie’s latest book Entitled. Royal watchers are snapping up tickets to hear the inside story from the author himself when he appears at the Festival on 23 October. Lownie spent four years interviewing hundreds of…

  • A strange journey into history

    Sophy Roberts, a speaker at this year’s Festival, is on the shortlist of the 2025 Wainwright prize for conservation writing for her latest book A Training School for Elephants. Following in the footsteps of four elephants shipped from India to the East African coast in 1879, she explores colonial greed and human-animal relationships through both…

  • Festival supports Wells Ecoweek

    Health, climate change and conservation are all hot topics, and not only is the Festival hosting three speakers on relevant subjects this year, but it is pleased to support Wells Ecoweek. This is an event organised by the Wells Environment Network to raise awareness in the city of the need to protect and conserve our…

  • Congratulations to Booker Prize nominee

    Award-winning novelist Andrew Miller’s latest book The Land in Winter has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 and has also won the 2025 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The Somerset-based author, who is an Associate of Wells Festival of Literature,  appeared at the 2022 Festival where he spoke of his then new novel…

  • Friends Event Success!

    Remnants of woolly rhinos, hyenas, bears, wolves, aurochs and other species long extinct in the UK are among the fossilised remains found in a small cave high up on Ebbor Gorge, near Wells. Professor Danielle Schreve, a leading palaeontologist at the University of Bristol, revealed the extent of the finds at a fascinating talk for…

  • Regency Romance

    Regency romance is in the air and Jane Austen fans are in for a treat at this year’s Wells Festival of Literature as the nation celebrates the 250th birthday of the famous author. Comedian Rachel Parris and Austen expert Ros Ballaster are both appearing at the Festival with very different tributes to the much-loved author…

  • Recipes for success

    Women whose lives have been successful in wildly differing ways are just some of the highlights of this year’s Festival. Among them is Prue Leith, a surprise pop-up visitor last year after fellow cook Sophie Grigson’s Italian-flavoured presentation. This year Prue is herself a Festival headliner, bringing some welcome advice from her latest book Life’s…

  • Winning story

    A speaker at last year’s Wells Festival of Literature has been awarded this year’s Women’s prize for nonfiction for her moving book The Story of a Heart. Dr Rachel Clarke, a specialist in end-of-life care, appeared at the Festival in 2024 where she gave a heartwarming account of two nine-year-old children and the lifesaving journey…