Clifton LitFest

Clifton LitFest returns to Clifton from Friday 13 to Sunday 15 November, spread across five venues: Clifton Library, Christ Church, Clifton High School, Clifton Club and Pavey House. It's the festival's seventh edition, and for the first time it's expanded to three full days, with more than 70 writers, thinkers, journalists, artists and cultural figures on the bill. The programme reaches across politics, law and literature, art, history, nature, food, philosophy and psychology.

Friday night starts at the Clifton Club with local writers Mike Jay, Amy Fletcher, Patrick Charnley and Julian Evans, alongside a debate between Michael Gove and Professor Guy Standing. Saturday night moves to Christ Church for a retrospective on West Country author Laurie Lee, bringing together poetry, archive footage and a live performance by the Bristol Metropolitan Ensemble. Other names appearing across the weekend include Mary Portas, Baroness Hale, Jonathan Porritt and Andrew Graham-Dixon. Beyond the talks, there are poetry workshops, live music, film screenings, tastings and story walks around Clifton.

Behind the scenes, the festival is run by the registered charity Friends of Clifton Centre and Library and is entirely volunteer-led, with all proceeds reinvested into community reading projects and local library services. Paula O'Rourke, Chair of Clifton LitFest, says the curation kept returning to the idea of positivity and happiness, aiming for a weekend that doesn't shy away from big questions but gives people space for curiosity, pleasure and discovery.

Standard tickets are £5 plus a booking fee, and many events are free. If you're a young writer, the Young Writers Competition closes on 16 October. There's also a bit of a treasure hunt going on: fifty 'Golden Tickets' are hidden inside printed programmes at Clifton Library, each good for a complimentary pair of tickets to an event of your choice.