Line-up for 2024 Morpeth Book Festival includes Mari Hannah and Dan Jackson

The line-up of acclaimed authors includes the woman who will be launching the festival, North East crime writer Mari Hannah whose most well-known character is DCI Kate Daniels, and Dan Jackson, author of the best-selling The Northumbrians: North-East England and Its People: A New History.

Joining them and other well-known writers will be local writers and poets. The two-day event starts on Saturday, March 23 and it is once again being organised by the Greater Morpeth Development Trust in an association with the Northumberland Library Service.

The venue for the authors’ talks will be the new Morpeth Sports and Leisure Centre, which also houses the town’s library.

The programme also includes Phaedra Patrick talking about her latest book – The Little Italian Hotel – plus Meriel Schindler, whose book The Lost Café Schindler tells the story of her father’s extravagant claims about their family history and their running of infamous Café Schindler in pre-war Innsbruck, and the multi-award-winner M. W. Craven.

GMDT arts and culture director Frank Rescigno, one of the main organisers of the Morpeth Book Festival, said: “This will be our second festival because we sadly had to re-schedule last year’s event when two of our leading authors were unable to attend because of illness and then we were hit with a national train strike that meant some of our other contributors were not able to travel to be with us.

“However, despite that being a set-back we were determined to continue with the festival because the first one in 2022 was such a great success and we knew there was an appetite from local people to be given the chance to hear from and meet top authors, as well as local writers talking about their work.

“So, we have put together another exciting programme covering so many different aspects of writing bringing top authors to Morpeth once again.”

Plenty of local writers and poets will be taking part in the festival including Morpeth’s own Bridget Gubbins, Sarah Elliott, Marrisse Whittaker, Lisette Auton, Colin Youngman and Jo Lyons, and there will also be readings, story-telling sessions, fun-and-games for children and an appearance by the popular children’s author Kjartan Poskitt.

More information and the various festival tickets are available at www.ticketsource.co.uk/greater-morpeth-development-trust