The second Retford Book Festival will take place at venues in and around Retford from Saturday 6th to Sunday 14th June 2026.
The principal venue will once again be the historic Grove Street Methodist Church where the festival was made very welcome last year. There will also be events at the Glass Lounge café, Idle Valley and St Saviour’s Church.
The organisers are committed to their mantra of ‘something for everyone’. This year’s festival will include poetry, journalism, crime, sport and philanthropy, history, photography, illustration, up and coming writers and a special event in aid of the RNIB.
The festival continues to punch above its weight with some big names this year: Alastair Campbell, Mark Steel, Stephen Booth, Blake Morrison, Henry Normal and Roger McGough. Organisers agreed with Alastair Cambell that they would offer local politics students 15 free tickets to his event and these have been enthusiastically applied for.
They are running two workshops this year – one on writing horror and one on self-publishing. The popular crime writers’ panel will be chaired again by local crime fiction author, Graeme Cumming, and will feature Zoe Sharp, Wes Markin and TM Logan.
Authors will be talking about their work and their writing lives. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and buy their books.
After the success of last year’s eight school events, they are funding 15 events this year in local schools with poet Paul Cookson and illustrator Liz Million.
The festival is organised by an enthusiastic group of volunteers but without their sponsors and supporters the Retford Book Festival would never have happened.
Tickets are available now from www.wegottickets.com or from Wonderland bookshop on Retford’s Carolgate.
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