This year’s Smithdown Litfest is Thursday 25th to Sunday 28th September 2025. Tickets are now on sale.
Each September, the Smithdown Litfest has author talks and readings for all ages, in community venues along the Smithdown Road corridor ‒ from Toxteth to Allerton. The aim of the Litfest is to present a programme of stimulating and enjoyable author events for local residents, and to encourage visitors from Liverpool and beyond to experience the culture and heritage in our area too. The Litfest attracts household names like Ann Cleeves, Chris Tarrant and Jimmy McGovern, as well as popular local authors.
The authors chat about their writing lives and books, and answer questions from the audience. Each event lasts for 1½ hours.
All profits from ticket sales go to good causes. Our cause for 2025 will be Smithdown in Bloom. In 2023 and 2024 the Smithdown Litfest raised funds for new planters on Smithdown Road and in the surrounding streets.
Our Way with Words exhibition celebrates the people with a connection to our area who went on to great success in a career with words. It has previously been exhibited in Toxteth Library and Bean There Coffee Shop on Smithdown Road.
The Litfest was founded by local resident Ian Skillicorn, who owns and runs Wyndham Books, the publisher of bestsellers including Hardacre by CL Skelton, which inspired the Channel 5 period drama The Hardacres. Ian’s family connections to the Smithdown Road area go back multiple generations, to the 1800s. The Litfest is organised through a not-for-profit community interest company called Great Ideas Unlimited (Company No. 07185399).
The Smithdown Litfest 2025 is supported by the Research Institute for Literature and Cultural History, Faculty of Arts, Professional and Social Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, and Liverpool City Council through Local Neighbourhood Funding courtesy of Councillor Martyn Madeley.
Some links of interest:
A short review of our first festival by Norma Cohen