A major event celebrating the best of children’s and young people’s literature is returning to Preston again and it’s set to be bigger and better than ever before.
The Northern Young Adult Literary Festival (NYALitFest), organised and hosted by the University of Central Lancashire’s (UCLan) award-winning UCLan Publishing House, is returning for the third year.
In addition to the free event, which is funded by the Arts Council, is a dedicated day to children’s books, called KIDSLitFest.
The Festival, which brings authors, publishers and other industry experts together with readers and young writers in the only event of its kind in the north of England, is taking place on 21 and 22 March on UCLan’s Preston Campus.
Throughout the weekend, workshops, advice panels, Q&As, and book signings will take place. Among the big named authors who will be in attendance are Juno Dawson and Holly Bourne.
Due to demand, a special evening event for teachers and librarians is taking place on 20 March. The theme is ‘Voices’ and attendees will hear from publishers including Bloomsbury, Faber, Scholastic, Walker, Barrington Stoke, Chicken House and Bounce.
Organiser Hazel Holmes, from UCLan Publishing, said: “NYALitFest and our new KIDSLitFest is purely focused on children’s and young adults’ literature. It's brilliant for a northern festival to have such great support from publishers, authors and agents who are primarily London based.
“NYA and KIDSLitFest gives young readers, teachers and librarians direct access to authors, publishers and writing development workshops, otherwise unreachable. We're thrilled to have so many fantastic speakers on out programme.”
For a comprehensive list of all events, guest speakers and to book a ticket visit https://nyalitfest.wordpress.com/programme/ or @NYALitFest on Twitter.