DATES have been announced for this year’s Dulverton Exmoor Literary Festival, which is being extended with an extra day.

It will be the fourth year of the festival, which has been scheduled to run over the weekend of November 15, 16, and 17.

The festival will for the first time continue into the Monday, when there will be a dedicated ‘Festival Schools Day’ during which former Children’s Laureate Lauren Child will chat in Dulverton Town Hall with youngsters from across the area about her writing.

Ms Child’s books include ‘I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato’, ‘Charlie and Lola’, and ‘Clarice Bean’.

Saturday and Sunday festival days will again feature author talks in the Town Hall, and writing discussions and book readings in other venues around the town, as well as a ‘meet the author’ session in Dulverton Library.

Another innovation for the 2025 festival will be a literary lunch, for which sponsors and ‘Festival Friends’ will be entitled to priority booking.

Festival director Ali Pegrum said: “We have already pulled together a fascinating list of authors to speak over the weekend.

“We are anticipating that this year’s programme will again result in sell-out events in the Town Hall, but, of course, all our ‘Festival Friends 2025’ will benefit from priority online booking a full week before the box office is opened to everybody else.”

Ms Pegrum said an eclectic range of talks had been arranged, with subjects including Margaret Thatcher, fiction, crime, Cornwall, motor racing, birds, conservation, the atomic bomb, and Jane Austen during her 250th birth year anniversary.

Others still in the pipeline included Shakespeare, the South West Coast Path, cocktails, and farming.

People can become a ‘Festival Friend 2025’ with a minimum donation of £20 by visiting its website.

Ms Pegrum said: “It is thanks to our ‘Festival Friends of 2024’ that we have been able to extend our outreach programme to local schools, encouraging reading and writing across Exmoor, Devon. and Somerset, not only through the festival children’s writing competition but also now by being able to offer the dedicated schools day in November.

“‘Friends’ will also benefit from being able to pre-order signed books by their favourite festival authors to collect on the day from the pop-up Waterstones bookshop, guaranteeing they do not miss out before they sell out.”

Ms Pegrum said the ‘Friends’ initiative had been started to bring together ‘all those who enjoy reading all year round’ and to encourage ‘a richer and wider development of the event’.

She said: “By becoming a ‘Friend’ for 12 months you will give vital support to the festival organisers in attracting writers of excellence, of both fiction and non-fiction.”

The festival will again hold a children’s writing competition for youngsters aged 13 years and under, after last year’s event attracted 65 entries.

More information about each of the confirmed authors will be available via the website, and any local businesses which are interested in sponsoring the festival can contact Ms Pegrum by emailing to [email protected].