The festival took a blended approach to delivery of events both within the historic city and live-streamed online, providing a welcomed transition away from the festival’s wholly online approach last year (due to obvious circumstances). In our interview with Grace Keane, programme manager at the Durham Book Festival from last year, we asked if she could see online events becoming incorporated into the future of book festivals, even post COVID-19; her response was:
“This is one of the reasons we want to continue to incorporate digital events going forward. As well as increasing accessibility, on the whole it allows us to engage with audiences all around the world, and to create events that are a little different than the usual festival author talk. We’re so excited to hopefully be back in Durham for real next year – we’ve definitely missed the interaction and sense of community in the city – but we’re also keen to keep a blend of digital events going forward, even when we’re on the other side of the pandemic.”
The North East also plays host to other literary festivals, including Hexham’s Book Festival (April), Berwick Literary Festival (Autumn) and our very own Newcastle Poetry Festival, which takes place every year in spring.
