Latitude Festival Reveals First Wave Of 2026 Literary And Poetry Programme

Latitude Festival has revealed the first wave of names for its 20th anniversary literary and poetry programme, taking place 23-26 July 2026 at Henham Park, Suffolk.

Dr John Cooper Clarke, Inua Ellams and Courttia Newland join a packed 20th anniversary programme that already includes David Byrne, Sara Pascoe, Sue Perkins and Lenny Henry across the wider festival. Since its debut in 2006, Latitude has been as much a celebration of language and literature as it has been a music event, the first festival in the UK to give poetry its own dedicated stage.

Twenty years on, The Listening Post, The Bookshop and the Cosmic Shambles Forest of Science and Culture come together for an ambitious literary and cultural programme, uniting the launch of Latitude's debut fiction series, a new young writers' prize mentored by Caitlin Moran, and the greatest gathering of poets Latitude has ever assembled.

Melvin Benn, Festival Founder and Director, said: "Latitude was built on the belief that every art form deserves an audience. Twenty years ago we set out to prove that a festival could be more than just music, that a poet deserves the same stage as a rock band and that a literary conversation can be as electric as any headline set. Two decades on, this is the most ambitious programme we have ever built. We are proud to be launching a debut fiction series this year, bringing some of the most exciting new authors in contemporary fiction to Henham Park for the first time. Dr John Cooper Clarke, who performed at that very first Latitude in 2006, returns to the stage he helped make famous. And in the Cosmic Shambles Forest of Science and Culture, Professor Turi King, the geneticist who identified King Richard III from DNA found in a car park, proves that the most extraordinary stories are sometimes found in the most unexpected places. Which is, when you think about it, exactly what Latitude has always believed."

Since its debut in 2006, Latitude has been as much a celebration of language and literature as it has been a music event, the first festival in the UK to give poetry its own dedicated stage. That first edition was shaped by a radical decision from Festival Director Melvin Benn: to ask Luke Wright, the acclaimed East Anglian poet, to help curate something no major UK festival had attempted before. Wright has been part of every Latitude since, and curates this year's Thursday night opener: a special event that reunites the spirit of the original stage with a stellar lineup featuring some of Latitude's most beloved poets alongside exciting new voices.

Wright also returns to the stage with a deeply personal new book, Later Life Letter (Little, Brown, 2026), a memoir in poetry exploring his own adoption, the biological brothers he knows only through social media, and the complex, tender nuances of family and belonging.

Luke said: "In 2006, Latitude Festival introduced a bold idea: a dedicated Poetry Arena. Over the next eleven years it became the biggest poetry gig in Europe, hosting more than 500 poets from across the world and helping spark the spoken-word revival that swept the UK in the noughties. The stage welcomed legendary voices including Patti Smith, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah and Wendy Cope, as well as the last three UK Poets Laureate. It also helped launch the careers of modern stars such as Hollie McNish and Kae Tempest. Now, to celebrate 20 years of Latitude Festival, the Poetry Arena returns for one night only. One night. One stage. The Poetry Arena is back."

The legendary Dr John Cooper Clarke, the original punk poet and Bard of Salford, brings his razor-sharp wit and machine-gun delivery to Henham Park. Clarke performed at the very first Latitude in 2006, when putting poetry on the same footing as music was a radical idea. His return to the stage he helped define feels like one of the most fitting moments of the entire anniversary weekend. And fittingly, it is poetry that opens the festival on Thursday night, with a lineup that feels like a genuine statement of intent: twenty years on from that first edition, Latitude's opening night belongs to the poets.

Voted the most important poet of the last twenty years in a poll of Latitude's own audience, Inua Ellams returns for a homecoming of his own. One of the earliest poets to perform at Latitude, Ellams has grown from a young artist finding his voice on this very stage into one of the most celebrated poets, playwrights and storytellers of his generation. He brings Search Party to Henham Park, his multi-acclaimed, gloriously unpredictable audience-led show in which he searches his entire archive of every word he has ever written, from finished poems to abandoned drafts, responding to words called out by the crowd in a spontaneous act of call and response that has wowed audiences from Lincoln Center to the Edinburgh Fringe.

Inua Ellams said: "Latitude has always had a special place in my heart. I first attended 16 whole years ago, and it taught me so much about myself, audiences and the simplicity of honest and true conversations and interaction. Perhaps the seeds for Search Party were planted back then - this is why I'm excited to bring this social experiment of a poetry show. I can't wait to see and be seen, to hear and be heard there."

Poet, author and activist Salena Godden, whose landmark collection Mrs Death Misses Death established her as one of the most electrifying and uncompromising literary figures in Britain today, brings her extraordinary live presence to The Listening Post, her work pulsing with fury, tenderness and hope. Joining them are Hollie McNish, whose frank, funny and deeply humane writing has introduced poetry to audiences who never expected to love it; Joelle Taylor, whose visceral and visionary work has made her one of the defining voices of contemporary British poetry; and Tim Clare, whose warmth, wit and fearless emotional intelligence has won him a devoted following through both poetry and his celebrated podcast.

John Osborne brings his characteristic warmth and storytelling brilliance to The Listening Post, his latest collection To Make People Happy shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards. Birmingham's Bradley Taylor, winner of the Roundhouse Poetry Slam 2024, arrives with his debut collection You Missed The Best Part, described by Craig Charles on BBC Radio 6 Music as "a brand new voice and a fresh perspective on the art of poetry." Georgie Jones, a Roundhouse finalist with 5.8 million social media views, joins Kate Ireland, whose debut collection Adaptive Strategies for a Sensitive System (Burning Eye, 2026) is a field guide for surviving a world that keeps turning up the brightness, by turns raw and wryly funny. Hannah Jane Walker, poet, playwright and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster from Essex, brings to The Listening Post her belief that poetry is, above all, a form of genuine conversation.

The programme extends well beyond poetry. Comedians Do Poems and the gloriously unpredictable Pappy's Flatshare Slamdown complete a brilliantly irreverent comedy strand, while on Friday Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club brings Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd's warmly funny celebration of undersung books to a live Latitude audience.

Topping the literary bill, Courttia Newland, author, screenwriter and co-writer of the BBC's Small Axe, arrives with his electrifying new book The Art of Opposition: On Hope, Resilience and Creative Expression Beyond the Mainstream (Faber, 2026), a bold and provocative examination of what it means to make art in defiance of the mainstream, from one of the most important voices in British literature. Joining him, poet and essayist Rebecca Tamás - whose debut collection WITCH was a Guardian, Times and Paris Review book of the year - brings The Book of Mysteries (Pushkin Press, 2026), a richly lyrical journey through the Pagan wheel of the year and our relationship with the natural world. South London writer, poet and spoken word performer Ella McLeod brings a reading from her hotly anticipated new novel Andromeda (May 2026), a lyrical mythological reimagining published by Penguin that follows her Branford Boase-nominated debut, her work weaving poetry with prose to explore identity, womanhood, Blackness and queerness.

Latitude is also proud to announce the launch of its debut fiction series, bringing together some of the most exciting new voices in contemporary fiction for a programme of readings and conversations. Currently open for submissions from publishers, the series is built around a simple but uncompromising idea: singular voices, books that draw you all the way into a new world, books that leave you dazed and blinking, looking at your own world anew. Full details of the authors and programme will be announced shortly.

A rare and intimate conversation with Sir Matthew Bourne, the most successful dance theatre director in British history, joined by Anthony Missen, incoming Chief Executive and Creative Director of DanceEast, offers festival-goers a quite different perspective on an artist whose relationship with Latitude stretches back across the festival's two decades.

Latitude also announces a new initiative designed to open doors for the next generation of writers. This year Latitude is working with The British Society of Magazine Editors on the BSME & Caitlin Moran Young Writers' Prize, a new annual award designed to discover brilliant young writers aged 18-25 from across the UK who lack the connections or traditional pathways into journalism. The winner will receive a cash prize, year-long mentorship from Caitlin Moran, and work experience placements with leading UK magazines - culminating in a stage appearance at Latitude 2027 alongside Caitlin. As Moran puts it: "I won my career in a writing competition at 15. I want to do the same for someone else." Entries close 8 May 2026. Full details here.

The Bookshop returns with one of its most compelling programmes yet, anchored on Friday by Martha Kearney and her acclaimed nature writing strand. A long-time Suffolk resident with a profound love for the East Anglian landscape, Kearney curates a special day of nature writing events on the Friday of the festival. After stepping down from the Today Programme, she has devoted herself more fully to nature, continuing her work with Open Country and This Natural Life.

The nature writing lineup is exceptional. Patrick Barkham, natural history writer for the Guardian and author of eight acclaimed books including The Butterfly Isles, Badgerlands and The Wild Isles, is one of the most admired voices working in the genre today. Luke Barley arrives with his debut Ancient: Reviving the Woods That Made Britain (Profile Books, 2026), praised by Chris Packham and described as a spellbinding account of Britain's most irreplaceable habitats. Harriet Rix brings The Genius of Trees, described by the Telegraph as a true masterpiece and named a best book of the year by the New Yorker. Charles Foster, whose New York Times bestseller Being a Beast, in which he attempted to experience the world as a badger, otter, fox, red deer and swift, won the Ig Nobel Prize for Biology, is one of the most singular figures in British nature writing. David Appleton, head of the Suffolk UK Tree Warden Network, joins a lineup that feels entirely at home in the Suffolk countryside that has inspired so much of this writing, and that is, of course, home to Latitude itself.

The Cosmic Shambles Forest of Science and Culture brings together an exceptional gathering of authors, scientists and storytellers for a programme of talks, performances and unexpected collisions between disciplines.

Headlining the Forest is Professor Turi King, the geneticist who led the forensic DNA analysis that identified King Richard III, in a car park, in what became one of the most extraordinary scientific detective stories in history. Now Director of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, she is a broadcaster, author and scientist of rare gifts. Joining her at the top of the bill is Dr Julia Shaw, criminal psychologist, bestselling author and popular science broadcaster whose latest book Green Crime delves inside the minds of the people destroying the planet and how to stop them.

Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason appears as part of Book Shambles with Robin Ince and Josie Long, her new book To Be Young, Gifted and Black exploring what it means to grow up as a Black artist in today's turbulent times. Jakko Jakszyk, lead vocalist and guitarist of King Crimson, joins fresh from the publication of his autobiography Who's The Boy With the Lovely Hair? Already announced as a Latitude headline act, Sara Pascoe arrives in the Forest fresh from her biggest ever UK tour, I Am A Strange Gloop, hailed by The Times as "first-rate confessional comedy", the bestselling author of Animal and Sex Power Money bringing her characteristic intelligence and warmth to a second appearance. Cariad Lloyd, creator of the award-winning podcast Griefcast and bestselling author of You Are Not Alone, joins her co-host for an unmissable double bill.

Professor Catherine Loveday, neuropsychologist and author of The Secret World of the Brain, explores the mysteries of memory and music. Dr Susannah Fisher, author of Sink or Swim: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate, brings urgent and essential thinking to the programme. Simon Watt, founder of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, presenter on the BAFTA-winning Inside Nature's Giants and author of The Ugly Animals: We Can't All Be Pandas, makes the case for the world's least glamorous creatures. Nate Rae, scientific storyteller and author of children's books on everything from dinosaurs to engineering, completes an exceptional lineup of authors, scientists and thinkers.