North's premier literary festival returns to Preston

A major event celebrating children and adults literature is heading back to Preston, and promises to be bigger and better than ever.

The Northern Young Adult Literary Festival is returning to the city in March for a third year.

Organised by the University of Central Lancashire’s award winning UCLan Publishing House, and funded by the Arts Council, the event is a weekend of workshops, advice panels, Q&As sessions and book signings.

Over the past two years the festival has attracted names in both the literary and publishing world.

Among the big named authors who will be there this year are Juno Dawson and Holly Bourne.

There will also be a special day dedicated day to children’s books, called KIDSLitFest and due to demand, there will be a special evening event for teachers and librarians.

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.”

The festival is the only one of its kind in the north of England and will take place on March 21 -22 at UCLan’s Preston Campus.

For a comprehensive list of all events, guest speakers and to book a ticket visit https://nyalitfest.wordpress.com/programme/ or @NYALitFest on Twitter.