Swansea University has announced the line-up for its Children’s and Young People’s Literature Festival, scheduled to take place over two days in October 2025. The event will offer storytelling and story-making sessions in both English and Welsh, targeting families, schools, and young readers. The festival aims to engage attendees with a variety of contemporary authors and illustrators from Wales and across the UK.
Bestselling novelist Kate Mosse, who is also the founder of the Women’s Prizes, will headline this year’s programme. Other featured guests include Manon Steffan Ros, winner of the 2023 Carnegie Medal; Alex Wharton, poet, performer and current Children’s Laureate Wales; and Hanan Issa, National Poet of Wales.
The schedule further includes Caryl Lewis, recipient of multiple Literature Wales Book of the Year Awards; Lesley Parr, who has won both the Tir na n-Og Award (2022, 2024) and Wales Children’s Book of the Year (2023); as well as Claire Fayers and Liz Hyder, winners of the 2025 Tir na n-Og Award.
Additional authors participating are Meleri Wyn James, Rebecca F. John, Huw Lewis-Jones, Lee Newbery, Angie Roberts, Emma Smith Barton, Sion Tomos Owen, Darren Chetty and Helen and Thomas Docherty. These writers are set to deliver a programme intended to inspire creativity among children and encourage reading.
Beyond author-led events, free drop-in creative stations will be available daily from 11am to 3pm. Activities at these stations will include colouring, story writing, bookmark making, drawing and face painting. No advance booking is required for these sessions.
The festival is organised by Swansea University’s Cultural Institute along with its DylanED programme. Partners for this year include the Rhys Davies Trust, Storyopolis, Cover to Cover bookshop and Literature Wales’ Inspiring Communities Fund.
Dr Elaine Canning—Director of the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize and DylanED educational programme—commented: "I am delighted that we're bringing the second edition of the children's and young people's literature festival back to Swansea this October. With a fantastic line-up of the very best authors from across Wales and the rest of the UK, we're looking forward to welcoming families and friends to an exciting weekend of storytelling, story making, creative stations and much more. Special thanks to all our partners and Swansea University student interns for making this possible through shared vision, passion and energy.”