What's on

Food Mania!

Performance Space

Let our expert Speed Mentors help you turn your new food business into a tasty success The UK’s food and drinks sector is going from strength to strength with developments in street food and markets, pop-up catering, hospitality and myriad innovative new product launches all contributing to our growing reputation as a nation of foodies. […]

Word Central Open Mic Poetry and Spoken Word

Performance Space

Hosted by Paul Neads with special guest poet Gerry Potter. October’s guest Gerry Potter is a poet, playwright, director, actor, and both creator and destroyer of the infamous gingham diva, Chloe Poems. A favourite son of Manchester and his home town Liverpool, he trained at Everyman Youth Theatre and National Museums Liverpool lists him amongst […]

Clementine Ford: Boys Will Be Boys

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               ‘The status quo might revere men as a class, but it destroys them as individuals.’ In Boys Will Be Boys, Australian feminist Clementine Ford’s furious and funny new book, she considers why toxic masculinity isn’t just bad […]

£8

Dashehra Diwali Lantern Making Workshops

City Library

In preparation for the Dashehra Diwali celebration on 12 October, we will be holding lantern making workshops for those wishing to be a part of the lantern parade on the evening of 12 October. There are three sessions to choose from - Saturday 5 October 11am–1.30pm Saturday 5 October 2 - 4pm Saturday 12 October […]

Cathy Newman: Bloody Brilliant Women

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               Bloody Brilliant Women, Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman’s fascinating history of British women, asks two important questions: what were the sources of female power in the 20th century?, and what have women used this power to achieve? […]

£10

Caroline Criado Perez: Invisible Women

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               It really is a man’s world. In her latest book Invisible Women, writer and feminist campaigner Caroline Criado Perez (Do It Like a Woman) considers how the perspective we have of the world has been recorded and […]

£10

Celeste Ng in Conversation

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               Celeste Ng, author of the critically acclaimed bestsellers Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere, joins us to talk about her work. Her gripping novels explore themes of race, class and privilege through family dynamics, […]

£8

An Evening with Jim Kay: The Art of Harry Potter

Performance Space

Jim Kay will be talking about his inspiration behind the art for the book and what it was like to illustrate J.K. Rowling’s words. Jim will reveal some of the stories behind his work, the artists that have inspired him and how he goes about creating images of the key characters from the Harry Potter […]

£6

Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, Abigail Parry & Serafina Vick

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               Celebrated Cuban writer, Legna Rodríguez Iglesias launches her bi-lingual poetry collection A little body are many parts. Legna has won a number of prestigious national and international prizes including the Premio Paz for her collection, Miami Century […]

Kerry Hudson: Lowborn

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               “I decided that I’d start to try to acknowledge the strength it had taken for me to get through, and over, my upbringing and become the woman I am today.” Kerry Hudson grew up in a succession […]

Elif Shafak

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               Does anyone care about a sex worker, murdered and abandoned in a bin in Istanbul? Tequila Leila’s friends do. In her superb new novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, Elif Shafak considers the meaning […]

£8

Dashehra Diwali Celebration

Visit Central Library during the afternoon to start the celebrations off with performances, crafts and much more. Free for everyone. No need to book just drop in.