Chip­ping Nor­ton Lit­er­ary Festival

We are delight­ed to host a hand­ful of very spe­cial events with extra­or­di­nary authors and illus­tra­tors this autumn.

5 Oct: An Evening with Prue Leith, an unmissable evening with the inimitable Prue Leith, restaurateur, chef, novelist, Bake Off judge, and ChipLitFest patron – and an exclusive Chippy preview of her latest book, Bliss on Toast.

Tickets on sale now

11 Oct: Days Like These, best-selling poet and novelist Brian Bilston, Twitter's unofficial poet laureate, returns to Chipping Norton with a brilliant new way to mark and celebrate every day of the year.

Tickets on sale now

20 Oct: brother.do.you.love.me, brothers Manni and Reuben Coe reveal their story; Reuben's silence and sense of separation that prompted a heart-wrenching text message to his older brother and a complete change in both their lives.

Manni and Reuben will in conversation with Saba Salman.

Tickets on sale now

We're publishing a book! The One About the Sheep is a collection of the winning short stories from our annual competition. 21 brilliant, eclectic and diverse stories - now available via Kindle for just £1.99, and then out in paperback on 1 October for £9.99.

We would be incredibly grateful if you not only buy a copy but you also leave a review (positive, we hope!), reviews really do a make a difference.

Copies will also be available in local bookshops, more details to follow as soon as the paperback is launched.

ChipLitFest 2022 ran from 21 - 24 April.

There were 55 events and 74 authors, illustrators and interviewers came to Chipping Norton to share their amazing words and pictures.

3,000 tickets were sold and free tickets were made available to families and students who might not otherwise have been able to come.

The festival is community-run (committee members pictured on the Town Hall steps) and many local volunteers give their time and energy to bringing this amazing festival to Chipping Norton. We hosted international journalists, best-selling prize winning authors, environmental campaigners, brilliantly funny writers, chefs and cheese experts.

Many thanks to all the Chippy residents and businesses for their support and see you in 2023.

One of the highlights of ChipLitFest 2022 was the event celebrating the publication of My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, an anthology of short stories by Afghan women. The BBC's chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet, wrote the introduction to the book and she found the time to come to Chipping Norton along with one of the translators, Zari Kargar. Lucy Hannah, founder of UNTOLD the organisation that had commissioned the stories, joined us via zoom from Assam. Audience members asked the speakers for their recommendations for a reading list to help their understanding about modern Afghanistan and we're delighted to include it here.