THE University of Winchester Writers’ Festival has announced its exciting programme of workshops, talks, readings and one-to-one meetings, as bookings opened for this summer’s three-day event on June 16 to 18.

Now in its 37th year, the Festival is open to emerging creative writers working in all genres and at all levels of experience. This year’s event offers 18 intensive one-day courses and workshops, 27 talks and more than 700 one-to-one meetings with literary agents, editors and critically-acclaimed authors, scriptwriters and poets.

Award-winning poet, broadcaster and writer Lemn Sissay, MBE is the Festival keynote speaker. Lemn Sissay is the author of several collections of poetry alongside articles, records, public art, and plays. His Landmark Poems are installed throughout Manchester and London in venues such as The Royal Festival Hall and The Olympic Park, he was an official poet for the London Olympics and his specially commissioned poem Listening Post concluded the National Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme in Manchester in 2016.

The Festival is also welcoming back novelists Helen Fields and Rachel Featherstone and award-winning children’s authors Helen Dennis and Pamela Butchart, all of whom met their agents or editors through the Festival.

Highlights in 2017 include 10 Minutes of Hellos, a talk by BAFTA-winning script editor and producer Vanessa Amberleigh, a former student of the University. Vanessa gives an insight into writing scripts for children’s TV and young audiences with the best imaginations in the world.

A Festival reading with Winchester novelist Clare Fuller, winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize for Fiction for her debut novel Our Endless Numbered Days, is also on the bill.

Saturday June 17 offers emerging writers the opportunity to attend talks with, amongst others, acclaimed novelist William Ryan, who will show how a photograph album belonging to an SS officer inspired and shaped his novel The Constant Soldier, and literary agents John Berlyne (Zeno Agency), Diana Beaumont (Marjacq), Lorella Belli (LBLA) and Felicity Trew (Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency).

Helen Fields will speak about her path from criminal barrister to the author of a thrilling new crime series at the Festival dinner on Saturday night.

Particularly apt in the 200th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s death, Southampton-based novelist Rebecca Smith leads a workshop titled From Jane Austen’s Pocket on the Sunday using Austen’s methods and techniques for writing dialogue and crafting plots.

Visit writersfestival.co.uk for the full Festival programme and to book places. Early booking is recommended to secure a place.