Leeds Big Bookend & Northern Short Story Festival
@bigbookend.bsky.social
Writers, books, small publishers, readers - that's what we are about! Here to engage with and platform writers, books and all things lit. Leeds Lit Fest founder partner. Champions Leeds, Yorkshire and the North.
Pinned
So happy about this! Save The Date ~ Leeds Lit Fest is back,
14-22 June. Please share.
A collaboration between venues, organisers, writers & performers, we’ve once again got an action packed week of events taking place in venues across #Leeds
Stay tuned for the programme announcement coming soon.
14-22 June. Please share.
A collaboration between venues, organisers, writers & performers, we’ve once again got an action packed week of events taking place in venues across #Leeds
Stay tuned for the programme announcement coming soon.
Can't wait! It's run by volunteers - I'm one of them - with no funding, and we do it out of sheer passion and the determination to platform and celebrate #literature in #Leeds. We have amazing support from our community of writers, readers and other lovely folk who quite simply keep us going.
Reposted by Leeds Big Bookend & Northern Short Story Festival
📣📣📣LEEDS LIT FEST EVENT CALL OUT 2026📣📣📣
Are you a writer, performer, publisher or event promoter? Do you want to be part of LLF2026? Please fill in our short form to submit your event idea but read the guidance notes in the form first.
Deadline - Sun 1 Feb.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Are you a writer, performer, publisher or event promoter? Do you want to be part of LLF2026? Please fill in our short form to submit your event idea but read the guidance notes in the form first.
Deadline - Sun 1 Feb.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Leeds Lit Fest 2026 Event Proposals
Leeds Lit Fest 2026 will run from Saturday 6 June to Sunday 14 June. If you'd like to propose an event for this year's programme, please complete this form. We will consider all of the proposals we re...
docs.google.com
January 5, 2026 at 1:01 PM
📣📣📣LEEDS LIT FEST EVENT CALL OUT 2026📣📣📣
Are you a writer, performer, publisher or event promoter? Do you want to be part of LLF2026? Please fill in our short form to submit your event idea but read the guidance notes in the form first.
Deadline - Sun 1 Feb.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Are you a writer, performer, publisher or event promoter? Do you want to be part of LLF2026? Please fill in our short form to submit your event idea but read the guidance notes in the form first.
Deadline - Sun 1 Feb.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Reposted by Leeds Big Bookend & Northern Short Story Festival
🚨 ✨Save the date ~ The 8th Leeds Lit Fest is back ~ June 6th - 14th 2026 ✨🚨
Get it in your diary!
Get it in your diary!
January 4, 2026 at 10:18 AM
🚨 ✨Save the date ~ The 8th Leeds Lit Fest is back ~ June 6th - 14th 2026 ✨🚨
Get it in your diary!
Get it in your diary!
Reposted by Leeds Big Bookend & Northern Short Story Festival
The weather is looking good this weekend, so why not take some time to relax outside with a book.
You’ll find us on Weaver’s Lawn at @sunnybankmills.bsky.social enjoying the perfect Sunday, in a beautiful space in the heart of #Farsley. Just pop along anytime between 2-4pm.
#books #Leeds
You’ll find us on Weaver’s Lawn at @sunnybankmills.bsky.social enjoying the perfect Sunday, in a beautiful space in the heart of #Farsley. Just pop along anytime between 2-4pm.
#books #Leeds
August 12, 2025 at 11:59 AM
The weather is looking good this weekend, so why not take some time to relax outside with a book.
You’ll find us on Weaver’s Lawn at @sunnybankmills.bsky.social enjoying the perfect Sunday, in a beautiful space in the heart of #Farsley. Just pop along anytime between 2-4pm.
#books #Leeds
You’ll find us on Weaver’s Lawn at @sunnybankmills.bsky.social enjoying the perfect Sunday, in a beautiful space in the heart of #Farsley. Just pop along anytime between 2-4pm.
#books #Leeds
#Tolkien fans! Your chance to own a first edition of #TheHobbit if you've £10k+ to spare 🤣
The history of Tolkien in Leeds - BBC Sounds
The Lord of the Rings author lived and worked in the city in the 1920s.
www.bbc.co.uk
August 11, 2025 at 1:20 PM
#Tolkien fans! Your chance to own a first edition of #TheHobbit if you've £10k+ to spare 🤣
Reposted by Leeds Big Bookend & Northern Short Story Festival
📣 Aaaand we're off! 📣 Day 1 of Leeds Lit Fest is here and we've got six great events on today 👏.
Grab a last-minute ticket and join us: www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/
#leedslitfest #leedslitfest2025
Grab a last-minute ticket and join us: www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/
#leedslitfest #leedslitfest2025
June 14, 2025 at 8:38 AM
📣 Aaaand we're off! 📣 Day 1 of Leeds Lit Fest is here and we've got six great events on today 👏.
Grab a last-minute ticket and join us: www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/
#leedslitfest #leedslitfest2025
Grab a last-minute ticket and join us: www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/
#leedslitfest #leedslitfest2025
Love a Lit Quiz esp with Gary W! Such a great evening and the prizes are worth it too!!
Book here: www.leedslitfest.co.uk
Book here: www.leedslitfest.co.uk
Can i ask a favour? My quiz at @leedslitfest.bsky.social could do with a push! Can you share this? Especially if you know people who live in or near Leeds. It will be a fun night, come along! 15/06 Hyde Park Book Club. @trumanbooks.bsky.social
1 month till I am back in Leeds for @leedslitfest.bsky.social 2025 (Sunday 15th - tickets below). There will be questions about books & books only! Fun to be had & prizes to be won. New venue! - the frankly legendary Hyde Park Book Club. Can’t wait.
www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/2025-...
www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/2025-...
June 4, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Love a Lit Quiz esp with Gary W! Such a great evening and the prizes are worth it too!!
Book here: www.leedslitfest.co.uk
Book here: www.leedslitfest.co.uk
Lucky 13! I'm so proud and happy to be a member of the dynamic @redladder.bsky.social Board and cannot wait to work with these amazing new colleagues.
Just look at them! 🤩 EIGHT new passionate, informed and committed volunteers have joined our already belting bunch of trustees.
Find out who they all are and why we're so excited to welcome them here👇 What a board!
www.redladder.co.uk/red-ladder-w...
Image description: 13 fantastic smiling faces.
Find out who they all are and why we're so excited to welcome them here👇 What a board!
www.redladder.co.uk/red-ladder-w...
Image description: 13 fantastic smiling faces.
Red Ladder welcomes eight new board members - Red Ladder Theatre Company
Red Ladder Theatre Company is delighted to welcome Dawn Cameron, Coralie Datta, Deborah Kelly, Paul Graham-Bell, Tyler Pickles, Martin Plock, Richard D Rhodes, and Paul Robinson to its Board of Truste...
www.redladder.co.uk
May 20, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Lucky 13! I'm so proud and happy to be a member of the dynamic @redladder.bsky.social Board and cannot wait to work with these amazing new colleagues.
Reposted by Leeds Big Bookend & Northern Short Story Festival
PROGRAMME ANNOUNCEMENT! This June, Leeds Lit Fest is back with 9 days of events in venues across the city. A collaboration of writers, venues, programmers & poets. A gathering of homegrown people & guests from afar.
For more info on the programme & to book tickets: www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/
For more info on the programme & to book tickets: www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/
April 16, 2025 at 10:26 AM
PROGRAMME ANNOUNCEMENT! This June, Leeds Lit Fest is back with 9 days of events in venues across the city. A collaboration of writers, venues, programmers & poets. A gathering of homegrown people & guests from afar.
For more info on the programme & to book tickets: www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/
For more info on the programme & to book tickets: www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/
Reposted by Leeds Big Bookend & Northern Short Story Festival
Some very exciting news… We are thrilled to announce The #WomensPrize Outstanding Contribution Award – a one-off literary honour to mark the 30th anniversary of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, supported by Bukhman Philanthropies. Learn more about the award and our judges here: bit.ly/4lp0VYy
April 9, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Some very exciting news… We are thrilled to announce The #WomensPrize Outstanding Contribution Award – a one-off literary honour to mark the 30th anniversary of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, supported by Bukhman Philanthropies. Learn more about the award and our judges here: bit.ly/4lp0VYy
Looking for Yorkshire writers to be interviewed with regard to AI. See below.
📢Calling creatives from:
- Bristol, Bath, Swindon, Gloucester area
- Yorkshire
- Tyne & Tees
- Cambridgeshire
- East Midlands
Passionate about protecting your work from AI? Work scraped to train AI? Happy to be interviewed? Contact ewoodmeade@societyofauthors.org.
- Bristol, Bath, Swindon, Gloucester area
- Yorkshire
- Tyne & Tees
- Cambridgeshire
- East Midlands
Passionate about protecting your work from AI? Work scraped to train AI? Happy to be interviewed? Contact ewoodmeade@societyofauthors.org.
March 28, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Looking for Yorkshire writers to be interviewed with regard to AI. See below.
Please help @leedslitfest.bsky.social if you can. Thank you!
WE'RE #FUNDRAISING! Can you help us with a small donation to the running of this year's festival please?
We're all volunteers who have a huge passion for #literature but we are largely unfunded & it's getting harder to do this every year.
Donate, share the link and tell others. Thank you! #Leeds
We're all volunteers who have a huge passion for #literature but we are largely unfunded & it's getting harder to do this every year.
Donate, share the link and tell others. Thank you! #Leeds
Donate to Leeds Lit Fest 2025, organised by Leeds Lit Fest
Leeds Lit Fest is a volunteer-run festival that puts the grass-roots writing communities of the cit… Leeds Lit Fest needs your support for Leeds Lit Fest 2025
gofund.me
March 15, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Please help @leedslitfest.bsky.social if you can. Thank you!
Can't wait! It's run by volunteers - I'm one of them - with no funding, and we do it out of sheer passion and the determination to platform and celebrate #literature in #Leeds. We have amazing support from our community of writers, readers and other lovely folk who quite simply keep us going.
So happy about this! Save The Date ~ Leeds Lit Fest is back,
14-22 June. Please share.
A collaboration between venues, organisers, writers & performers, we’ve once again got an action packed week of events taking place in venues across #Leeds
Stay tuned for the programme announcement coming soon.
14-22 June. Please share.
A collaboration between venues, organisers, writers & performers, we’ve once again got an action packed week of events taking place in venues across #Leeds
Stay tuned for the programme announcement coming soon.
March 6, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Can't wait! It's run by volunteers - I'm one of them - with no funding, and we do it out of sheer passion and the determination to platform and celebrate #literature in #Leeds. We have amazing support from our community of writers, readers and other lovely folk who quite simply keep us going.
Reposted by Leeds Big Bookend & Northern Short Story Festival
@leedslitfest.bsky.social @bigbookend.bsky.social @lahri.bsky.social @trumanbooks.bsky.social @robmilespoetry.bsky.social @newwritingnorth.bsky.social
Tiny number of tix left for tomorrow night if anyone wants to come see me interview Rose, with Naomi Booth AND Lara Pawson. Single best line-up i've ever had at a work event, got some nicely provocative things to discuss....Gonna be amazing.
www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/lee...
www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/lee...
March 4, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Perfect for a winter's evening! Do you dare?
Join me this Wednesday for one of the most chilling ghost stories ever written, The Judge's House by Bram Stoker. A live performance, live-streamed, 5 March 2025 at 7:30 PM(UK). Tickets are Pay What You Decide - any amount is gratefully accepted. thejudgeshouse.eventbrite.com
The Judge's House - a ghost story: Live-Streamed
Join Adam Z. Robinson for this classic, blood-curdling ghosts story, adapted and told live on Zoom.
thejudgeshouse.eventbrite.com
March 4, 2025 at 6:33 AM
Perfect for a winter's evening! Do you dare?
Reposted by Leeds Big Bookend & Northern Short Story Festival
Just sent out my latest Highly Irregular newsletter with a shout-out for my fairy-tale/crime Zoom workshop next week - and, in Permission Corner, my thoughts on why happiness doesn't often come from having more of anything - even Bluesky followers 😉
taniahershman.substack.com/p/highly-irr...
taniahershman.substack.com/p/highly-irr...
Highly Irregular Newsletter #27 March 2025
Fairy tale-crime mashup writing workshop last call - and permission corner on why I am choosing to making paid subscriptions free for anyone who wants one...
taniahershman.substack.com
March 3, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Just sent out my latest Highly Irregular newsletter with a shout-out for my fairy-tale/crime Zoom workshop next week - and, in Permission Corner, my thoughts on why happiness doesn't often come from having more of anything - even Bluesky followers 😉
taniahershman.substack.com/p/highly-irr...
taniahershman.substack.com/p/highly-irr...
So great to hear this out in the world. Congrats, SJ!
I See Something, the first supernatural comedy from Uneasy Listening, will be available on all podcast platforms this Thursday! Uneasy Listening is a brand new weird horror comedy audio drama with a distinctly Northern accent.
sjbradleybooks.com/2025/02/24/u...
sjbradleybooks.com/2025/02/24/u...
Uneasy Listening – First Episode Coming Soon!
I See Something, the first supernatural comedy from Uneasy Listening, will be available on all podcast platforms this Thursday.In I See Something, bride-to-be Donna seeks advice from seafront psych…
sjbradleybooks.com
February 24, 2025 at 2:27 PM
So great to hear this out in the world. Congrats, SJ!
Wonderful to hear debut author Rachel Bower talk about her novel It Comes From The River. Folklore mixes with the lives of 3 strong Northern women. Great to hear our voices amplified @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social
February 18, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Wonderful to hear debut author Rachel Bower talk about her novel It Comes From The River. Folklore mixes with the lives of 3 strong Northern women. Great to hear our voices amplified @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social
Some excellent news for #Leeds!
Great to see Government money coming to #Yorkshire and supporting cultural organisations - @britishlibrary.bsky.social North and the #NationalPoetryCentre #Leeds #Literature
Yorkshire attractions to get £30m in funding
The money is part of the government's Plan for Change programme.
www.bbc.co.uk
February 17, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Some excellent news for #Leeds!
Wonderful to attend the Chemistry #SpokenWord #OpenMic at the Thackray Medical Museum last night. First time hearing @rosiegarlandwriter.bsky.social read which was a treat. Thanks for organising @joewilliamswriter.bsky.social and to all the poets reading. #Leeds #poetry
February 14, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Wonderful to attend the Chemistry #SpokenWord #OpenMic at the Thackray Medical Museum last night. First time hearing @rosiegarlandwriter.bsky.social read which was a treat. Thanks for organising @joewilliamswriter.bsky.social and to all the poets reading. #Leeds #poetry
It's Never Too Late To Apply! 60+ writers, here's a prize for you.
Also don’t forget the Bridport Prize also has the Never Too Late Award for Writers Over 60.
Please share :)
Please share :)
NEW! Never Too Late 60+ award - Bridport Prize
bridportprize.org.uk
February 10, 2025 at 7:21 AM
It's Never Too Late To Apply! 60+ writers, here's a prize for you.
Tonight! @trumanbooks.bsky.social See you there? #Leeds
Swell is published by Penguin next week but it's available to pre-order now. Looking forward to sharing these poems and chatting about the process. All tickets available through my Instagram 🧡
February 6, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Tonight! @trumanbooks.bsky.social See you there? #Leeds
Great news! The people have spoken. Support our #museums, #galleries and #libraries. If we don't use them, we'll lose them.
Their "current exhibition is called Story Time and includes a huge variety of historic #books and games, each exploring the magical world of children's stories." #Leeds
Their "current exhibition is called Story Time and includes a huge variety of historic #books and games, each exploring the magical world of children's stories." #Leeds
Leeds Abbey House Museum saved from closure
Abbey House Museum will now stay open as the council withdraws plans to close it to save money.
www.bbc.com
February 5, 2025 at 6:13 AM
Great news! The people have spoken. Support our #museums, #galleries and #libraries. If we don't use them, we'll lose them.
Their "current exhibition is called Story Time and includes a huge variety of historic #books and games, each exploring the magical world of children's stories." #Leeds
Their "current exhibition is called Story Time and includes a huge variety of historic #books and games, each exploring the magical world of children's stories." #Leeds
Rare as hen's teeth! Fully- funded PhD in the field of literature. Great work, MCL.
Lovely opportunity here with Manchester City of Literature to undertake a fully-funded PhD exploring the impact of literature and creative writing within communities. Deadline 28th Feb! www.manchestercityofliterature.com/opportunity/...
Fully Funded Collaborative Doctoral Project announced on the impact of literature and creative writing on communities - Manchester City of Literature
Manchester Metropolitan University and Manchester City of Literature have announced a Collaborative Doctoral Award, fully funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council. The Collaborative Doctoral P...
www.manchestercityofliterature.com
February 4, 2025 at 6:03 AM
Rare as hen's teeth! Fully- funded PhD in the field of literature. Great work, MCL.
Crime fiction lovers! New series excitement.
Here we go! Here's the cover for 'Cast No Shadow', published by Black Spring Crime Series and edited by @lucaveste.bsky.social. It's the first in a new series and it's published at the end of the month.
More information and details of the launch event to follow (you're all invited...) 📚
More information and details of the launch event to follow (you're all invited...) 📚
February 3, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Crime fiction lovers! New series excitement.
Just booked for this! It's all blood and anti-valentines at the Thackray MM. A night not to be missed. #Leeds
I'm hosting a poetry session as part of the Thackray Lates programme on Thursday 13 Feb at Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds. Featuring headliner @rosiegarlandwriter.bsky.social, plus open mic. Make sure to check the details for important open mic info! www.leedsinspired.co.uk/events/spoke...
www.leedsinspired.co.uk
February 2, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Just booked for this! It's all blood and anti-valentines at the Thackray MM. A night not to be missed. #Leeds