Chip­ping Nor­ton Lit­er­ary Festival

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.

Chipping Norton plays a huge role in the festival. All events take place in the town's buildings; the festival office is based at the Theatre; visiting authors stay and eat in the local hotels and pubs; the author green room is held at Jaffé & Neale, we even ask our illustrators to decorate the window (Allen Fatimahran pictured above); we take over shop fronts, phone boxes and railings with our branding, not forgetting our very own Chippy Yarnbomber; many of our sponsors are local businesses; our hugely supportive Festival Friends mostly live locally; and, of course, the festival is organised by residents from Chippy and the surrounding villages.

We are delighted to announce the winners of this year's short story competition judged by Yasmin Kane and sponsored by HW Fisher.

From a very strong shortlist, Yasmin picked the following stories (click on the title to read them, Yasmin's comments are also included):

Kenny, Winking by Annie Dawid

The One About The Sheep by Sally Bramley

Mrs Brooker by Jane Branson

Huge congratulations to the winners and many thanks to all those who took part and shared their stories with us.