Ambassadors

Maggie O’Farrell – Festival Patron

Maggie is the bestselling author of several novels and a memoir, including The Hand that First Held Mine and I Am, I Am, I Am. She agreed to become Patron after working with the Festival to establish a memorial to Shakespeare’s son, who was the subject of her Women’s Prize-winning novel, Hamnet. The memorial in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Shakespeare’s resting place, features two trees, one for Hamnet and one for his twin sister, Judith. Hamnet has also been adapted for the screen by Maggie and director Chloé Zhao. The film stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal.

‘I am honoured and delighted to become the Festival’s Patron,’ she says. ‘I’m so impressed with its outreach programme and am thrilled to be able to support its activities like this. I am looking forward to being involved with the Festival for years to come.'

Julia Donaldson – Festival Outreach Patron

Julia Donaldson is the country’s most popular writer for young children and the UK’s bestselling author, whose many books include The Gruffalo. We have always loved having her with us at the Festival. She says of becoming Patron: ‘I have appeared at the Festival several times and have been very impressed by the work they are doing outside of the twice-yearly book festival. I believe it is a charity really committed to supporting literacy in young people, with all the life benefits that brings, and I am very pleased to be supporting what they do.’

Dame Jacqueline Wilson

Dame Jacqueline Wilson is one of the nation’s favourite authors for children. She has sold millions of books worldwide and over 35 million in the UK alone. Perhaps best known for her Tracy Beaker series, she has been on countless awards shortlists and has won the Guardian Fiction award, the Children’s Book Award and Book of the Year, the Smarties Medal and the Blue Peter Choice Award. She has been the Children’s Laureate and has an OBE. In 2008 she became a Dame.

Clive Myrie

Clive is a BAFTA-nominated journalist, who has been at the forefront of current affairs, broadcasting and documentary-making since the nineties. He has reported from more than eighty countries on some of the most important news events over the last 30 years. He is now BBC News presenter and chairs the BBC’s quiz show Mastermind. The author of Everything is Everything, a memoir about his upbringing, he has also been a judge of the Baillie Gifford Prize. On being a Festival Ambassador, he says: ‘Here’s to being a fairy godfather!’

Picture: Lorentz Gullachsen

Simon Armitage

The Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, is a poet, playwright, novelist, lyricist and broadcaster, who writes extensively for television and radio. In 2014, he published Paper Aeroplane, a selection marking the 25th anniversary of the appearance of his ground-breaking debut poetry collection Zoom! He has won numerous awards for his work, including a prestigious Ivor Novello Award for his song lyrics in the television film Feltham Sings. His poems have been part of GCSE and A-Level exams in this country for nearly two decades now. Armitage was Professor of Poetry at the University of Sheffield and was elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford in 2015. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2010 was made CBE for services to poetry.

Dr Adam Rutherford

Adam is a geneticist, author, lecturer at UCL and broadcaster who frequently appears on science programmes on both radio and TV. He presents BBC Radio 4’s flagship programme Start the Week and was the host of Inside Science for eight years. He also co-presented the Radio 4 series The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry with Professor Hannah Fry and is a key member of the Authors Cricket XI.

Picture: Stefan Jakubowsk

Dame Harriet Walter

Dame Harriet Walter has worked extensively in theatre, TV, film and radio. Her many roles with the RSC, where she is an Associate Artist, include Cleopatra, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Lady Macbeth opposite Anthony Sher, Brutus in Julius Caesar and Henry in Henry IV. She won the Evening Standard Award for her role as Elizabeth in Phyllida Lloyd’s production of Schiller’s Mary Stuart and a Tony nomination on Broadway in 2009. Her best-known TV roles include Lady Caroline Collingwood in Succession, Harriet Vane in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, Natalie Chandler in Law and Order UK and Lady Shackleton in Downton Abbey, and her numerous film credits include Young Victoria, Atonement, Babel, Bright Young Things, Sense and Sensibility and Louis Malle’s Milou et Mai.

David Nicholls

David is a screenwriter and the author of several bestselling novels, including Starter for Ten, Us, The Understudy, Sweet Sorrow and One Day, which has been made into a film starring Anne Hathaway and a successful Netflix TV series. His latest novel, You Are Here, was a major bestseller. He has appeared at the Festival several times, and we guard our signed copy of the proof of One Day with our lives.

Professor Emma Smith

Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, Oxford, and the author of This Is Shakespeare and Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers. She is a huge fan of the festival. ‘Shakespeare had to leave for London to get his literary fix,’ she says. ‘But the Literary Festival is now leading a lively cultural scene in his hometown, and I am delighted to support its important work.’

Picture: Lorentz Gullachsen

Philip Ardagh

Philip Ardagh, a Festival regular, is the award-winning author of the Eddie Dickens adventures. His first Grubtown Tales won him the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and he wrote radio’s first truly interactive radio drama, as well as collaborating with Sir Paul McCartney on McCartney’s first children’s book. His series The Grunts is illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Philip lives down south somewhere, has a wife and son, and a very large beard, and he was our Guest Children’s Events Director in 2016.

Susanna Wadeson

Susanna Wadeson is publishing director at Torva, the non-fiction imprint at Transworld Publishers. She has edited the work of many leading writers, including Rachel Joyce, author of the very successful The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which was adapted for film and starred Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton. She regularly appears at the Festival with advice for writers on getting published.

Korky Paul

Korky Paul is also a Festival regular and is renowned for his superb and witty illustrations for the hugely popular Winnie the Witch series, winner of the Children’s Book Award. He has illustrated many other children’s titles and won the coveted European Multi-Media Award. He visits schools regularly, promoting his passion for drawing, and has children captivated by his drawings. Korky (real name Hamish Vigne Christie Paul) grew up in Zimbabwe but thankfully now lives much closer in Oxford and a bit further away in Greece.