By Spring is coming, and that means that not only we'll soon be getting long days and warm nights, but also that lit fest season is upon us – and we can't wait.
Literary festivals offer the chance to meet your book idols, hear them read, get your books signed and mingle with fellow readers beer and book in hand. What's not to love? Nothing. So here are our favourite literary festivals, where our favourite authors from around the world will be hanging out.
Stratford-upon-Avon Literary Festival
The birthplace of Shakespeare is an obvious destination for book lovers, and it's full of lovely and predictably quirky things to do, like hobbit-huts glamping (no comment). Why not go coinciding with this festival, which this year centres around themes of science and ideas, mental health and current affairs?
Some of our favourite events include food writers Ella Risbridger and Laura Freeman talking about mental health and food in Ingredients for Recovery, Ali Smith's talk ahead of her next book, Spring, and Tessa Hadley and Ben Okri's event on writing about now.
From 27 April to 5 May
Bare Lit
Bare Lit brings together poets, fiction writers, playwrights and journalists of colour for a series of readings, workshops and a myriad events in London – in response to the blatant lack of inclusion of POC in British publishing and, by extension, literary festivals.
This year's programme hasn't yet been announced, but if last year's line-up is anything to go by, you should be snapping up those early bird tickets ASAP: participants included some of our favourite UK writers, like poet Bridget Minamore, novelists Diana Evans and Guy Gunaratne, and journalist Yomi Adegoke.
From 3 to 5 May
The Bath Festival
A festival for which one of the main sections is titled Party in the City certainly has our attention. It's Bath's biggest night of free entertainment, on the opening night of the festival, with outdoor stages and more than 2,000 performers across dozens of venues, and it's not one to miss.
But the literary programming is also top notch – take your pick between an event on love with Queeny author Candice Carty-Williams; readings by all-round star poet Hollie McNish and Sarah Moss, author of the uncanny and Women's Prize-longlisted novel Ghost Wall; Elizabeth Day on her book and podcast on failure; and a conversation between Sharmaine Lovegrove, publisher of Dialogue Books (and former Elle Literary Editor!) and the novelists Saskia Vogel and Niven Govinden. Or go to them all.
From 17 to 26 May
Charleston Festival
The setting for this festival is the Sussex Home of the Bloomsbury group (Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, John Maynard Keynes, Roger Fry and a very distinguished etcetera) and its gardens. If the possibility of lounging with a book around in that dreamy setting wasn't enough reason to book your tickets, this year's line-up features a stellar list of authors.
From Jeanette Winterson on her upcoming gender- and genre-bending novel Frankissstein to Elizabeth Macneal and Amy Sackville on writing about artists of the past, Andrea Lawlor on Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, their powerful re-interpretation of Woolf's Orlando; and an event on New Daughters of Africa, there's a lot to pick from.
From 17 to 27 May
Hay
The most iconic of UK festivals, famously held in a tiny town in Wales, just getting there (and finding accommodation!) is an experience, and if you commit to it, it's one you won't forget. The whole town transforms into a book-lovers' haven, and the line-up is always full of exciting big and emerging names. The highlights so far include Anna Burns, Leila Slimani, Markus Zusak and Stacey Dooley. The full line-up will be announced in late March.
From 23 May to 2 June
Out-Spoken
Think of it as a great poetry and spoken word festival spread out across the year. Out-Spoken are partnering with the Southbank Centre for a year-long residency which will include magical nights of poetry and live music as well as masterclasses.
Some of the participants we love and whose work we recommend, if you haven't yet read it, are: Morgan Parker, author of There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé and Magical Negro; Hannah Sullivan, author of Three Poems (winner of the TS Eliot Prize); Sabrina Mahfouz, author of How You Might Know Me, among other books; Mary Jean Chan, author of the upcoming Flèche; and Rebecca Tamás, author of WITCH.
Edinburgh International Book Festival
This huge festival coincides with the Fringe, making Augusts in Edinburgh ridiculously fun. The programme will be announced in June, but you can be pretty sure it will be banging – recent years have included, for example, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Siri Hustvedt, Alan Cumming, Nina Stibbe, Rachel Kushner, Jonathan Safran Foer, Erica Jong, Kate Tempest or George RR Martin.
From 10 to 26 August
London Literature Festival
Back to the capital for autumn's main festival, held at the Southbank Centre, which each year features a mind-boggling amount of talks, readings, poetry and performances by authors and thinkers. We'll have to wait until the summer to know the 2019 names, but previous participants include Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Louis Theroux, Juno Dawson, Tom Hanks and Sally Field, so it's pretty safe to get excited early.
From 17 to 27 October
