2026
FESTIVAL
PROGRAMME
We are excited to present our talented line-up of authors for the 2026 Leiston Book Festival.
Topics this year will include weather, walking and the ground beneath our feet. We’ll also be encouraged to see seagulls a little differently and this year, for the first time, we’ll be dipping into climate-fiction, which is a new way to explore our changing environment.
FESTIVAL TIMETABLE
09:20
Welcome
Comp`ered by
12:30
Lunch
Halesworth
Bookshop
AUTHOR PROFILES
Thoughtlands -
Walking in Writers' Suffolk
Jacky Colliss Harvey
Jacky Colliss Harvey was born in Suffolk, near the River Deben. She studied English at Cambridge University and art history at the Courtauld Institute. She has worked as an editor and publisher in museum publishing, as a life model and as a film extra.
Her writing has been praised as ‘quirky and deeply perceptive’, and as ‘witty…wide-ranging and thoroughly enjoyable.’ She lives in London with two rescue cats.
In All Weathers - A Journey Through Rain, Fog, Wind, Ice and Everything In Between
Matt Gaw
Matt Gaw is a writer, journalist and naturalist who lives in Bury St Edmunds. His book In all Weathers was described by the Mail on Sunday as a ‘glorious ode to the inclement’. It was shortlisted for the 2025 New Angle Prize.
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His work has been published in the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Times. He works with Suffolk Wildlife Trust, edits Suffolk Wildlife, and currently writes a monthly country diary for the Suffolk Magazine.
Smelling of Rooks – Nine Years in the Norfolk Alps
Louis de Berni`eres
From the author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin comes a candid, comic and irresistibly companionable portrait of a writer’s life in rural Norfolk.
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Smelling of Rooks gathers a decade of reflections, anecdotes and observations on everything from music, cats and motorcycles to politics, parenting and the perils of social media. It is a book about the texture of ordinary days, told with the warmth, eccentricity and mischief that have made de Bernières one of Britain’s most beloved storytellers.
Landfill
Tim Dee
Tim Dee was born in Liverpool in 1961. He has worked as a BBC radio producer for twenty years and divides his life between Bristol and Cambridge.
He is the author of The Running Sky (2009), Four Fields (2013), and Greenery: Journeys in the Springtime (2020), all published by Jonathan Cape.
He is also the editor of Ground Work, an anthology of nature writing, which was published by Jonathan Cape in March 2018. Landfill, Tim's book on gulls, literature and landfill sites, was published by Little Toller Books in October 2018.
Down to Earth - Rediscovering our roots through the soil beneath our feet
Robert Ashton
Robert is fascinated by our past, and the way it is increasingly informing out future. His latest book Down to Earth was described by Professor Jules Pretty, President of Essex Wildlife Trust as a ‘fine and wise book that looks forward, back and down. Here is great attentiveness to nature and culture. Here too the very cycles of life and regeneration.’
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He is the founder of Leiston Book Festival, and is currently working on a book that explores the history of business ethics. www.robertashton.co.uk
The Wilder Path
Deborah Tomkins
Deborah Tomkins is a prize-winning novelist and short story writer from Bristol.
Her novel The Wilder Path won The Virginia Prize for Fiction in 2024 (Aurora Metro Books, 2025). Her novella Aerth won The Weatherglass Novella Prize in 2024 (Weatherglass Books, 2025; Zona42, Italy, 2026). Deborah has been passionate about nature all her life, is deeply concerned about climate change, and believes that a powerful way to win hearts and minds is through well-rounded stories. Deborah spent many years as a trustee and also Co-Chair of the UK environmental charity Green Christian, which has enriched her understanding of climate and environmental issues together with their societal and faith impacts.
In 2017 Deborah founded the Bristol Climate Writers network. Her short stories are published by independent presses online and in print.
The Way Under Our Feet - The Spirituality of Walking
Graham Usher
In The Way Under Our Feet, Graham Usher, the Bishop of Norwich, conveys how exhilarating it is to walk into the depths of our humanity. We become more ready to recognize the needs as well as the joys of others; we sift our thoughts; we seek to heal our battered world, even as we glory in the beauty of nature.
'This is a lovely book, full of light, grace and meaning. Usher celebrates his passion for walking by exploring both religious and secular texts.
