The University of Liverpool's Liverpool Literary Festival returns for 2026 with a stellar programme that celebrates the written word, and tickets are now on sale.
Taking place from Friday 16 to Sunday 18 October 2026, the festival brings together bestselling authors and passionate readers for a weekend of inspiring conversation, readings, and a shared love of literature.
This year's programme features acclaimed writers including BBC broadcaster Samira Ahmed, award-winning author Frank Cottrell-Boyce, bestselling crime writer Clare Mackintosh and Liverpool poet and performer Roger McGough.
Festival Director Professor Greg Lynall, Head of English at the University of Liverpool said: "The Liverpool Literary Festival has grown into a major cultural highlight for the University, that has welcomed thousands of readers and world-class writers.
"We are incredibly proud to once again bring such a fantastic line-up to Liverpool. From debut novelists to established authors, the festival offers audiences the opportunity to go beyond the page - hearing authors share personal insights into their work, engaging in Q&A sessions, and having their books personally signed after each talk."
Other festival highlights include:
- Nero Book Award winner Benjamin Wood discusses Seascraper, his haunting and timeless new novel.
- Winnie M Li presents her latest novel What We Left Unsaid. Her debut, Dark Chapter, won The Guardian's Not the Booker Prize and has been translated into ten languages.
- Thomas Glave and Stephen Small exploring transnational Black culture on both sides of the Atlantic, including in Liverpool, from the 1970s to the present day.
The Liverpool Literary Festival will take place at the Victoria Gallery & Museum. This Grade II-listed building has been at the heart of University life for over a century. Visitors are encouraged to explore its exhibitions throughout the weekend and enjoy the on-site café.
Liverpool Literary Festival 2026 is from Friday 16 to Sunday 18 October 2026. Festivalgoers can buy VIP passes for the whole weekend or just for one day, to make the most of everything the festival has to offer.
Curated by the University's Department of English, the festival has previously welcomed a host of literary greats, including former Chancellor Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn), Ali Smith, Lemn Sissay, Philip Pullman, Sally Rooney, Alan Hollinghurst, and alumna Professor Dame Carol Ann Duffy
Liverpool Literary Festival 2026: full line-up
Roger McGough: In Conversation
Friday 16 October
6pm
£12
Roger opens this year's Liverpool Literary Festival. He is joined in conversation with Professor John Redmond, poet and Professor of English Literature in the Department of English. Liverpool poet, performer and broadcaster Roger has published more than 100 poetry books for adults and children and been hailed 'the patron saint of poetry' and 'the godfather of modern poetry'.
How To Get Away With Murder with Rebecca Philipson
Saturday 17 October
10am
£8
Debut novelist Rebecca Philipson discusses her new book How To Get Away With Murder.
Published by Penguin, it is a crime story with a difference, inspired by her true crime blog launched during the pandemic and her fascination in the celebrity status often afforded to serial killers.
Queen of Crime Val McDermid - and Liverpool Literary Festival alumna - has said, "How To Get Away With Murder turns the serial killer novel on its head".
The Republic of Memory with Mahmud El Sayed
Saturday 17 October
11.30am
£8
Mahmud El Sayed's debut science fiction novel, published in May this year, is inspired by the events of the Arab Spring and is an analysis of empire and a portrayal of revolutionary change.
The British-Egyptian writer is a former Middle Eastern politics journalist, now writing science fiction and fantasy. Mahmud El Sayed won the prestigious 2023 Future Worlds prize for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers of Colour, and his work focuses on Arabic and Islamic-inspired themes in a genre he calls Arabfuturism.
Winnie M Li: What We Left Unsaid
Saturday 17 October
1pm
£8
Winnie M Li's latest novel What We Left Unsaid reconsiders the Great American Road Trip from the perspective of people of colour and uses the story of a single family to reflect on the political, economic and ideological divisions shaping contemporary America, and the possibility of reconciliation.
A Harvard graduate, Winnie's work explores gender and racial inequality, trauma, and displacement.
Alexandra Potter: So, I met This Guy…
Saturday 17 October
2.30pm
£10
Bestselling author Alexandra Potter joins us to discuss her latest novel So I Met This Guy…, a story of an unlikely friendship and a road trip across Europe.
Author of numerous romantic comedy novels, her books include One Good Thing, Me and Mr Darcy and Confessions of a Forty-something F**k Up, which was one of the bestselling books of 2022 and the basis of a major TV series.
Thomas Glave and Stephen Small: In Conversation
Saturday 17 October
4pm
£10
Thomas Glave and Stephen Small join Dr Amal Abu-Bakare, Lecturer in the Politics of Race and Decolonial Studies at the University of Liverpool. They will discuss transnational Black culture on both sides of the Atlantic, including in Liverpool, from the 1970s to the present day.
Thomas Glave is a Professor in the English Department at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and an honorary professor in English at the University of Liverpool. He is the author of five books and editor of Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles. His new essay collection, En Pointe, Off Kilter, includes reflections on race and racism, Jamaica and Jamaican queer realities and recent history, British colonialism, and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Liverpool 8 born, Stephen Small is a Professor of the Graduate School in the Department of African Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He researches the history and sociology of Black people across the diaspora. His new book, from Liverpool University Press, is Black Liverpool - 'The real thing': West African, West Indian and Afro-American culture at the end of the twentieth century.
Samira Ahmed on A Hard Day's Night
Saturday 17 October
5.30pm
£12
Award-winning journalist, writer, and broadcaster Samira Ahmed's new book for BFI Film Classics explores the Beatles' first film A Hard Day's Night.
Join us for a screening of the film (87 minutes), followed by a conversation between Samira and Dr Holly Tessler, Senior Lecturer in Music Industries and director of The Beatles, Heritage and Culture MA programme.
Samira is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. In 2023, she made headlines around the world for uncovering the earliest complete concert recording of The Beatles performing in the UK, at Stowe School in 1963, and helped to secure its acquisition by the British Library for the nation.
Full of insights from the cast and crew, and brimming with new analysis, Samira's book shows brilliantly how the film captures the indelible image of the Fab Four.
Samira Ahmed presents Front Row on Radio 4, and Newswatch on BBC One. She co-hosts the TV history podcast Through the Square Window and writes a column for New Humanist magazine.
Short Story competition winners - staff and student categories
Sunday 18 October
10am
FREE
Join Dr Danny O'Connor, Colm Tóibín Lecturer in Creative Writing, for a special event celebrating the winners and runners-up of the Liverpool Literary Festival Short Story Competition.
This year's theme is 'Travels', inspired by the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
The competition is sponsored by Scrivener, and the judging panel includes Festival Director Professor Greg Lynall, King Alfred Chair in English Literature.
Frank Shovlin: John McGahern: A Writing Life
Sunday 18 October
11.30am
£8
In October Faber and Faber publish the much-anticipated authorised biography of the Irish writer and novelist, John McGahern, written by Frank Shovlin, Professor of Irish Literature at the University's Institute of Irish Studies.
Drawn from more than two decades of research into one of the great prose stylists of the twentieth century, John McGahern: A Writing Life will allow - for the first time - insight into the life of this very private writer.
NB: The winner of this year's John McGahern prize will join the event at 2.30pm.
Debut novelists Lauren Mooney and Saul Leslie: In Conversation
Sunday 18 October
1pm
£8
Join two University of Liverpool alumni as they discuss their debut novels, both of which - in their own unique ways - explore work, power, class and capitalism.
Lauren Mooney's debut novel Service finds comedy and horror in servitude at a landed estate. Meanwhile, Saul Leslie's novel A Working Title I Want To Change explores the dizzying over-lit world of austerity Britain, revealing consumerism's rituals and illusions in all their comedy and menace.
Lauren and Saul, both of whom studied English Literature at the University, will be in conversation with fellow alumna Sara-Louise Tareen, co-organiser of Feminist Fiction Liverpool.
The John McGahern Annual Book Prize
Sunday 18 October
2.30pm
FREE
Join us for the seventh annual John McGahern Book Prize and hear excerpts from the winning entry, which will be announced in September.
The prize was established by the University's Institute of Irish Studies to promote new Irish fiction and to celebrate the memory of one of Ireland's greatest masters of prose fiction, John McGahern (1934-2006). The competition carries an award of £5,000 for the best debut novel or short story collection by an Irish writer or writer resident in Ireland published in 2024.
The winner will be in conversation with Professor Frank Shovlin.
Benjamin Wood: Seascraper
Sunday 18 October
4pm
£10
Nero Book Award Fiction Category Winner Benjamin Wood joins us to talk about his haunting and timeless book Seascraper.
His fifth novel, its main character, Thomas, lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in the Longferry working his grandpa's trade as a shanker. When a striking visitor turns up bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, he is shaken from the drudgery of his days. This is the story of a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.
Benjamin will be in conversation with Dr Danny O'Connor, Colm Tóibín Lecturer in Creative Writing.
Bestselling crime author Clare Mackintosh in conversation
Sunday 18 October
5.30pm
£12
Former police officer, turned best-selling crime author, Clare Mackintosh returns to Liverpool, after her sold-out event in 2021.
Her books have sold more than three million copies, been optioned for television and translated into 40 languages, and her debut novel I Let You Go was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and in 2016 won the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.
She will be discussing her latest offering It's Not What You Think with Dr Matthew Bradley of the University's Department of English.
A British Childhood with Frank Cottrell-Boyce
Sunday 18 October
7pm
£12
Award-winning author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce joins the festival for the fourth time to discuss his latest book A British Childhood: How Our Children Live Now.
Best known for his children's fiction, his latest book draws on his Merseyside upbringing and reflects on the role literature played in his early life, alongside the profound changes to childhood in Britain. Shaped by his time as Children's Laureate, it is informed by visits to under‑resourced schools, encounters with children affected by the prison and asylum systems, and conversations with those working to improve young people's lives.
