Event Programme: confirmed authors for our two-day Festival on 10th & 11th October 2025.
Event Programme: confirmed authors for our two-day Festival on 10th & 11th October 2025.
The dates for the 2025 festival are Friday 10th October and Saturday 11th October. The programme is a work in progress with many exciting authors and writers covering all genres lined up to appear and with tickets on sale in early summer.
We are delighted to have already confirmed the following authors covering lifestyle writing, fiction and nature.
Michelle Ogundehin, Seth Insua, Michael J Warren, Alex Preston, Sarah Winman and Vanessa Nicolson.
Download our Winter Newsletter here.
Cranbrook Literature Festival:
A celebration of books, reading and writing in Cranbrook
Cranbrook Literature Festival, established in 2016, is a two-day, biennial event to promote the joy of the written word to children and adults across the Weald of Kent. We are a not-for-profit organisation run totally by volunteers. Our Festival programme offers a great mix of authors and poets, both well known and up-and-coming, plus writing competitions, creative writing workshops and a well-stocked pop-up bookshop. We are proud to finance the cost of visits by children’s authors to local schools from festival revenue.
The National Literacy Trust published a report in 2020 which indicates that author visits to schools have a positive effect on children and young people’s reading and writing skills and aids their enjoyment and confidence in both. School budgets don’t always stretch to visiting authors or writing workshops and this is where Cranbrook Literature Festival can help.
The reason why we do what we do…
Thank you to London Poet Anji Manuelpillai who came to Rosewood School in Staplehurst
on 12th March.
Pupils at The Rosewood School, Staplehurst enjoyed a great morning of poetry on 12th March with London poet Anji Manuelpillai, organised by the Cranbrook Literature Festival. The students enjoyed working with Anji and loved the books donated by the festival to the school library. Thanks for a great morning Anji!
Thank you to children’s author Tia Fisher who came to Cranbrook Grammar School
on 20th March to talk to pupils about her book “Crossing the Line” .
Cranbrook School welcomed author Tia Fisher to the school on 20th March courtesy of the Cranbrook Literature Festival as part of our 'authors in school' program.
Tia spoke to Year 9 and then Year 10 in an engaging, informative and extremely relevant presentation about her work, her writing process and her latest verse novel 'Crossing the Line' which was winner of the Carnegie Shadowers' Award 2024. Many questions were asked by the pupils at the end of session, and we donated copies of Crossing the Line to the school library.
“My recent visit to Cranbrook School was only made possible by the amazing support of the Cranbrook Literature Festival. I was so impressed by the calibre of the writers booked, and the dedication and work which goes into building a festival where - get this! - ALL the profits go towards funding author events which local schools otherwise wouldn't be able to afford. And at a time when reading for pleasure is being eroded, visits from authors can really engage children and boost literacy. The right book, the right author - this can make all the difference to a child's reading journey. So when you book a ticket to the festival, you're not only gifting yourself a great time, but potentially improving the lives of children. Win, win, right?”
Thank you to children’s author Gianna Pollero who came to Colliers Green Primary School in Cranbrook
on 17th January to talk to pupils about her “Monster Doughnuts” books.
Thank you so much to everyone who came to support Cranbrook Literature Festival on 11th October
and of course to Clare Chambers, who was so open and honest about her writing.
Thank you so much to everyone who came to support Cranbrook Literature Festival on 19th June
and of course to The Reverend Richard Coles, who was so witty and charismatic.
The Cranbrook Literature Festival welcomed the Reverend Richard Coles to an 'in conversation' event on 19th June in St Dunstan's Church, Cranbrook. The church was packed with a sell out audience and Richard was in great form talking about his 'cosy crime' books featuring Canon Daniel Clement. The third in the series (Murder at the Monastery) had just been published and, after an informative and amusing chat with festival chairperson, Christine Newman, Richard did a reading from the book followed by a Q&A session and an incredibly long signing session.
“I’ve always loved crime fiction. The first proper book I ever got when I was a boy was the Sherlock Holmes short stories from my grandfather. I actually made my parents buy me a deerstalker and I used to wear it around Kettering and was obviously beaten up daily – and rightly so. But I was fascinated by this idea of an enigmatic figure on the edge of things, who sees what others don’t see and puts right things that have gone wrong”.
“I’ve got into the pattern now: the day I finish a book, literally, I start the next one because I like to keep my discipline”.
Thank you so much to everyone who came to support Cranbrook Literature Festival on 10th May and of course to Elly Griffiths, who was so open, inspiring and friendly about her writing.
Over 100 fans of crime writing filled the Vestry Hall, Cranbrook on Friday 10th June to hear the wonderful Elly Griffiths speak about her crime books in the Dr Ruth Galloway series (15 in total), her Brighton mystery books and the many stand-alone novels also crafted by her.
Elly was in conversation with the chairman of the Cranbrook Literature Festival, Christine Newman, and during the evening the audience learnt about where Elly’s inspiration comes from, what her work schedule is like, the crucial input from her editor and her plans for future novels.
Elly said that she doesn’t always have a written plan for her books but writes a little bit of the next chapter after completing a previous chapter. She has taken to heart advice from writer E L Doctorow who said that planning like that is like driving in the dark with your headlights on; you can only see a bit of the road, but you can make the whole journey like that.
Her writing regime involves shutting herself away in her writing shed with lots of strong coffee and trying to write at least 1000 words a day until she has the basic manuscript and then and only then does she go back and change things.
The evening finished with a Q&A session and book signing and Elly told the audience that she has a book of short stories coming out soon – including one about Ruth and Nelson – plus a new book early next year which is about time travel.
“Planning is like driving in the dark with your headlights on; you can only see a bit of the road, but you can make the whole journey like that.”
