Durham Book Festival 2026

About

Durham Book Festival returns from 9-11 October.

Welcome to the 2026 Durham Book Festival. We’re back with another packed weekend of books and ideas, and a programme that celebrates voices forged in the North and beyond.

2026 is the National Year of Reading and we’re celebrating with a North East Big Read: The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley. Free copies of this page-turning mystery will be available in libraries and community settings across County Durham. We hope you’ll pick up a copy and join a local reading group session.

This year we are premiering new writing from, Lucy Rose, Romalyn Ante, Naomi Booth Sarah Hall and Jake Morris-Campbell. You can find out more about our commissions and discover the full Durham Book Festival programme below.

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Durham Book Festival

Over 30 speakers will come to Durham for events ranging from a gaming jam, a poetry scratch night, writing masterclasses, and a new commission on gender and sleep, to a live podcast recording with actor Christopher Eccleston, a discussion with musician Neil Tennant, and talks on food and identity, the importance of reading for democracy, Newcastle United, working-class writing, and tarot card reading.

Forged in the North with Neil Tennant will see the Pet Shop Boys icon talk to former White House advisor and Chancellor of Durham University, Fiona Hill, about how growing up in Newcastle shaped his music. Tennant’s books:  One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem and Volume: the Complete Visual Record, celebrate 40 years of the Pet Shop Boys’ entire visual output and the lyrics that have made Tennant such a unique chronicler of modern life.

Award-winning poet Hollie McNish will host a hilarious and heartfelt evening of poetry, reading from her latest collection, Virgin, and unpicking the meaning of the word with her trademark feminist wit, fury, and compassion. Hollie will be joined by Edinburgh Makar/poet laureate, award-winning author and poet, Michael Pedersen.

Internationally bestselling author Susanna Clarke will introduce her brand-new novella, The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City. Set in 1110, this new tale is in the lore of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and follows the Bishop of Durham on an epic quest through an other-worldly North East of England to a New Castle on the banks of the River Tyne in an attempt to surrender to the fairy host besieging his city.

New Northern Voices: Sufiyaan Salam, Louise Powell, and Shaun Wilson will bring see three exciting new authors introducing their powerful debut novels. Northern communities are vividly brought to life through the young son of an ex-miner in 1990s Easington in Underdogs, three brown boys on Manchester’s Curry Mile in Wimmy Road Boyz and a Cumbrian teenager rebelling against his fearsome publican father in Malc’s Boy.

Budding game designers can join a Festival Game Jam to get a better understanding of how written narratives can form the basis for playable experiences. Durham University game studies academics will lead interactive workshops to take a new commissioned short story by Lucy Rose (The Lamb), and brainstorm ways it might translate as a video game.

And the Big Read is back, to celebrate the National Year of Reading! We are encouraging people across the region to read the Sunday Times number one bestselling novel The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley. Set in a remote Scottish hunting lodge, this locked-room mystery sees a group of old friends gather to celebrate the New Year, but before their trip ends, one of them is dead and everyone is a suspect. There will be 3,000 free copies of The Hunting Party distributed across County Durham, Sunderland, and Newcastle with Big Read events taking place in libraries across the region. Whether reading is part of your everyday routine or you have not read in years, the Big Read is the perfect opportunity to share the joy of reading with others.