Durham Book Festival is a Durham County Council event produced by New Writing North and is part of Durham County Council’s exciting festivals programme.
The festival takes place in and around the beautiful city of Durham each October. In 2022, the festival will take place at Gala Theatre and Clayport Library.
Every year the Durham Book Festival invites a range of thinkers, writers and performers to appear. Events at previous festivals have included appearances from Philip Pullman, Bill Bryson, Pat Barker, Jung Chang, PD James and Simon Armitage.
The announcement of the Gordon Burn Prize takes place at the festival each year and is fast becoming one of the UK’s most exciting literary prizes. This prize honours the late North East author and journalist Gordon Burn and seeks to reward writers who embody the spirit of Burn’s own bold and innovative literary methods.
Alongside more traditional author events, Durham Book Festival commissions new writing each year across all forms. Previous festival commissions have included a dance-theatre retelling of Rapunzel from Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy; historian David Olusoga’s essay Black and British: Growing up in the North East; and journalism examining the legacy of the Miners’ Strike, from writers including Richard Benson and Anne McElvoy.
Our commissions originate in Durham and often go on to tour to other festivals or to be published in the national media.