Derby Book Festival jobs and careers

About Derby Book Festival

Since its launch, Derby Book Festival has sold more than 30,000 tickets to more than 570 events. In the last nine years, it has welcomed celebrities including newsreader Dan Walker, broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, comedian Susan Calman and Esme Young from the Great British Sewing Bee. Internationally acclaimed authors such as John Boyne, Val McDermid, Sebastian Faulks and Raynor Winn have graced its stages, as well as local writing talent including Stephen Booth, Joanna Cannon and T.M. Logan. The festival has also given Derby children the chance to meet authors including Charlie and Lola creator Lauren Child, comedian turned-author David Baddiel and the Queen of teen literature Jacqueline Wilson. But the Festival is so much more than these author events: it offers year-round activities through its popular community programmes. Derby Book Festival's Shared Reading community programme brings people together over a shared love of words and reading. Sessions are guided by two trained volunteers and a piece of writing is read aloud and discussed. This can take the form of a poem, article, short story, comic strip, song lyrics, shopping receipt - the list really is endless! Launched in 2015, the Flash Fiction writing competition has run every year since. The task is to write up to 50 words, on a theme, and around 550 entries are received each year. We encourage all Derby schools to take part and there are closed categories for people in two local prisons. The annual Children’s Picture Book Award aims to promote books in which Derby’s diverse population of children can recognise themselves. Publishers are asked to submit picture books that particularly reflect this for 6-8 year olds. A long list of 50 books is selected before a group of volunteer Derby primary teachers create a shortlist of three. The Festival also runs a successful Children’s Book Appeal in the summer and autumn where the people of Derby are asked to donate pre-read books which are distributed to schools.