An Evening with Joanne Harris

Joanne Harris is at The Old Woollen on Monday 19 October, as part of Farsley LitFest. It's an evening talk rather than a reading, so you'll hear her speaking about her work and the ideas behind it, with a book signing to follow.

Most of us know her from Chocolat, the 1999 novel that became an Oscar-nominated film with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, and Blackberry Wine. But that's just the tip of it: she's written twenty novels, three cookbooks, plenty of short stories, and the libretti for two short operas. She was born in Barnsley to a French mother and an English father, and she still writes from a shed in a small Yorkshire wood, with her books published in more than fifty countries. She's a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and she chaired the Society of Authors between 2020 and 2024.

The night is built around her new ghost story, set in Kirkhill house on the moor, and she'll be talking about love, loss, mystery and dementia. It's the kind of thing that's easier to hear in person than to read in a blurb, and since it's a talk, you'll get her talking through the themes rather than just hearing the plot summarized. The book signing afterwards means you can get your copy signed and have a word if you've got something you've always wanted to ask.

It runs from 20:00 to 22:00 at The Old Woollen, Sunny Bank Mills, 83-85 Town Street, Farsley, Leeds LS28 5UJ, and tickets are £24.00 or £32.00.