2024 Ilkley Literature Festival Programme Announced

The north’s longest-running literary festival, Ilkley Literature Festival, has announced its 2024 line-up.

Kate Atkinson, Julian Clary, Susie Dent, Patrick Grant, Alan Hollinghurst, Jodi Picoult, Prue Leith, Carol Ann Duffy and more.

A plethora of poets, novelists, chefs, historians, politicians, children’s authors, biographers, journalists, and even the odd national treasure, descend on the spa town this autumn.

Kate Atkinson, one of the world’s foremost novelists, launches her new Jackson Brodie book, Death at the Sign of the Rook, in an exclusive event in partnership with Grove Bookshop on 18 September.

Then, from 4 to 20 October, over 90 events will take place across 17 days at the King’s Hall and venues across the town.

Headline acts include household names such as Julian Clary, lexicographer Susie Dent, and Strictly’s Shirley Ballas, with their debut murder mystery novels, Curtain Call to Murder, Guilty by Definition, and Dance to the Death.

The acclaimed American novelist Jodi Picoult brings her latest novel By Any Other Name, and Booker-prize winning novelist Alan Hollinghurst celebrates his first book in over a decade, Our Evenings.

National treasures Prue Leith and Gyles Brandreth return. Prue with her latest cookbook, Life’s Too Short to Stuff a Mushroom and Gyles delves into the secrets of happiness and the joys of the English language, with Happiness in Just a Minute.

John Suchet promises a candid talk on his part memoir, part biography In Search of Beethoven: A Personal Journey, which explores how music became the great passion of his life.

Bringing political clout are Alan Johnson’s biography of Harold Wilson and Sir Graham Brady’s explosive new memoir from the heart of Westminster, Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers. Caroline Lucas also explores if we can reclaim Englishness from the cheerleaders for Brexit and the right, with Another England: How to Reclaim Our National Story.

Journalists Polly Toynbee and David Walker take to the stage to discuss what went wrong under the Tories, and what must now be remedied, with The Only Way is Up.

The Guardian’s Adrian Chiles presents The Curious Columns of Adrian Chiles and Cathy Newman discusses her latest book, The Ladder, which offers inspiration and counsel from some of the world’s most acclaimed and influential women.

Looking up to space are Maggie Aderin-Pocock with her book, Webb’s Universe: The Space Telescope Images That Reveal Our Cosmic History, and philosopher AC Grayling, with his exploration of the new space race, as he asks the galactic question, Who Owns the Moon?

Erica Morris, director of Ilkley Literature Festival, said: “We’re excited to welcome big names and big ideas as we once more bring an epic celebration of books, reading and writing to Ilkley. From exploring the secrets of happiness to who owns the moon, to our turbulent state of politics here and across the pond, there’s plenty to entertain, engage and inspire.”

Architect, and star of BBC’s Your Home Made Perfect Laura Jane Clarke gives her tips on interior design, while clothier and judge on The Great British Sewing Bee Patrick Grant discusses overconsumption in fashion and how we can make ourselves happier by rediscovering the joy of living with fewer, better-quality things.

Comedy and life lessons come in the form of Paul Sinha and Helen Lederer, who’ll both be discussing their new memoirs.

The festival is exploring a series of themes for 2024.

The theme In Verse plays homage to the festival’s 50-year legacy of promoting poetry. The inaugural festival was opened by poet W.H. Auden in 1973.

Audiences can discover the power of poetry at a reading with poets including Peter Sansom of The Poetry Business and Ted Hughes Award winner Raymond Antrobus, or find their own voice on one of the festival workshops. Headline poets include the former Makar of Scotland, Jackie Kay and former poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, who will discuss her beautifully curated book, Earth Prayers. There’s also a chance to catch the up-and-coming stars of the future, including this year’s cohort of New Northern Poets.

Democracies in Danger acknowledges 2024 as the ultimate election year, with almost half the global population taking to the polls, and features talks from journalists, politicians and experts on the state of politics and democracy.

Audiences can explore how conspiracy theories are tearing US politics apart with Gabriel Gatehouse, host of the smash-hit podcast The Coming Storm, and join a panel on UK politics with journalists Sam Freedman and Simon Kuper.

Murder, They Wrote celebrates the nation’s bestselling genre, as arresting debut authors to masterminds of the genre discuss why crime fiction pays. Ilkley welcomes crime authors including Janice Hallett and Saima Mir, as well as a host of celebrities-turned-crime writers.

Audiences can sink their teeth into the theme A Matter of Taste as, alongside Prue Leith, this year welcomes food writer and podcaster Georgina Hayden, chef, and restauranteur Ben Tish and fromager-extraordinaire, Ned Palmer offers a cheese and wine tasting.

Climate experts and horticultural icons take centre stage in Explore Moor: Nurturing Nature featuring Countryfile’s Tom Heap and Gardeners’ World’s Carol Klein. On the flip side, authors explore the pros and cons of AI on human creativity in events themed around Ethics and Technology.

Shaking Up Shakespeare sees a series of events that show the bard in a new light, featuring Succession star, Dame Harriet Walter, who is also one of Britain’s most esteemed Shakespearean actors, with She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said.

To view the full programme and book tickets https://www.ilkleylitfest.org.uk

Follow @ilkleylitfest Box Office: 01943 816714.

Tickets for Friends of the Festival available from 21 August; the general box office opens 27 August

Notes to Editors

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For interview requests or further media info, please contact ann@causeuk.com m: 0753 489 2715.

About Ilkley Literature Festival

Ilkley Literature Festival is nationally acknowledged for its artistic excellence and diverse programming. It is produced by Word Up North, a year-round writing development organisation that provides opportunities for mentoring and talent development in the north of England.

The two-week autumn festival brings literature and poetry of national and international significance to audiences of over 22,000 each October, as well as showcasing new work by emerging and mid-career writers.

Ilkley Literature Festival is an Arts Council England NPO and supported by Bradford Metropolitan District Council.

What’s On | Ilkley Literature Festival @ilkleylitfest

Some Quirky Festival Facts

There is only one other literary festival older than Ilkley: Cheltenham.

Festival bookseller, local independent bookshop The Grove, reportedly sells between 10,000 and 20,000 books across the 17 days of the festival.
Ilkley Literature Festival first began in 1973 with words of support from JB Priestley, who praised the organisers, noting the difficulty of a literary festival in that, “Authors have little to show and are no treat as a spectacle.”
He was proven wrong in 1975, when Ted Hughes read Cave Birds. The Yorkshire Post wrote: “A blood curdling scream pierced the heart of Ted Hughes’ new poem sequence at its world premiere in Ilkley…It came from a member of the audience. Shortly afterwards a woman vomited and was led out.”
Over the last half a century, it has weathered recessions, funding cuts, a pandemic, and worse – being relatively ignored by the national media, because of, a former chair observed, its ‘northern remoteness.’
However, the national media did report on it (for the wrong reasons?) in 1977, when a huge bronze statue of the Minotaur by sculptor Michael Ayrton was unveiled in the town for the festival. It boasted, “commensurately large genitalia” resulting in petitions to protect the young and the elderly, and a headline in the Daily Express, ‘Beefing over 7 foot of Bull.’
As well as supporting emerging poets and new voices, Ilkley has always attracted the literary ‘big guns,’ with icons including: Maya Angelou, Alan Bennett, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, Margaret Drabble, Fay Weldon, Harold Pinter, Bernardine Evaristo, and A.S. Byatt headlining over the years.
Other notable past attendees include Tony Benn, Sebastian Faulks, Timothy and Prunella West, Michael Palin, Caryl Phillips, Beryl Bainbridge, Benjamin Zephaniah, Andrew Motion, Blake Morrison, V.S Naipaul, Tom Courtenay, Willy Russell, Jeffrey Eugenides, P.D. James, Mark Haddon, Alice Sebold, Richard Ford, Michael Ondaatje, Donna Tartt, David Suchet, Jamie Oliver, Richard Dawkins, and Malorie Blackman.
Ilkley Literature Festival has had a number of special commissions over the years, most notably – in partnership with (now Poet Laureate) Simon Armitage – the creation of the 50-mile Stanza Stones Poetry Trail across the Pennines from Marsden to Ilkley.
Ilkley’s appeal remains undimmed over the decades. The spa town regularly features on the Sunday Times best places to live list, thanks to its enviable boutique shops, scenery, and good schools. In a shrewdly skewering essay penned following her writer in residency in 1977, Angela Carter noted the contrast between the town’s shops filled with “good tweed and sturdy jersey” and the eccentricity of its inhabitants writing: “You could write like Balzac if you lived in a town like that.”