Chip­ping Nor­ton Lit­er­ary Festival

Still smiling - here are the Festival committee members on the steps of the Town Hall at the close of the ChipLitFest 2023.

This year's festival built on the 2022 festival, reminding audiences to trust that live literary events will go ahead and that they can book tickets in advance! We still had to hold our nerve as audiences have changed their buying habits but we were delighted by the high number of sold out events.
The festival week began with visits to 16 schools - nursery, primary, secondary and special - from a team of eight authors delivering brilliant fun workshops.
From Thurs 27 to Sun 30 April, we then hosted 54 events involving 69 authors and 13 interviewers. Approx 3,000 tickets were sold, audiences from age 3 upwards were entertained all weekend by amazing authors. People laughed, cried, learned, met their literary heroes, discovered new ones and bought 100s and 100s of books.

The festival is community-run, the organising committee are all volunteers and give their time and energy to bringing this amazing festival to Chipping Norton. Many thanks to all the Chippy residents and businesses for their support and see you in 2024.

THE FIRST NEW SERIES FROM #1 BESTSELLER MARK BILLINGHAM IN 20 YEARS.

'Readers rejoice! A captivating new series from Mark Billingham, the very best in the business' --- RICHARD OSMAN

Meet Detective Miller: unique, unconventional, and criminally underestimated...

He's a detective, a dancer, he has no respect for authority ­- and he's the best hope Blackpool has for keeping criminals off the streets. Meet Detective Declan Miller.

A double murder in a seaside hotel sees a grieving Miller return to work to solve what appears to be a case of mistaken identity. Just why were two completely unconnected men taken out? Despite a somewhat dubious relationship with both reality and his new partner, can the eccentric, offbeat Miller find answers where his colleagues have found only an impossible puzzle?

We're delighted to welcome Detective Miller and his creator Mark Billingham in conversation with Mick Herron to Chipping Norton on Fri 26 May Tickets on sale now.

Mark Billingham was born and brought up in Birmingham.

His novels have now sold over 6 million copies. He has had 20 Sunday Times bestsellers (every one of his titles) and has spent over 124 weeks in the top ten. Sleepyhead has now sold in 30 languages and two TV series have been made of Mark’s books – Thorne by Sky starring David Morrissey, and In the Dark by the BBC. A third is currently in development. His latest novel, The Murder Book, was published in June 2022.

Mark is one of ChipLitFest's founder patrons and is the indisputably brilliant festival Quiz Master.

In May this year, Mark introduces Detective Miller - his first new series in 20 years, get ready for Detective Declan Miller and The Last Dance.

Mick Herron is the author of the Slough House thrillers, now a major TV series starring Gary Oldman, which have won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, the Palle Rosencrantz prize, several Last Laugh awards, the Capital Crime Thriller of the Year award and been shortlisted four times for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year. Bad Actors is the eighth book in the series.

His other works include the Zoe Boehm series, the standalone novels Reconstruction, Nobody Walks and This is What Happened, and a collection of short stories, Dolphin Junction. Mick was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and now lives in Oxford. He writes full time.