MK Literary Fest has always encouraged, celebrated and developed local writing, and 2025 is no exception. The Festival chose 'Home’ as the theme for its fifth writing competition a simple word that embraces so many associations and human responses. Homes can be made or broken, reached or left, literal or metaphorical.
For many of the writers who responded, home is rooted in memory or in memories. and evokes a past time or place, often spent with loved ones since departed. sewhere, there are stories of homes being made or, more tellingly, adopted: in an era where migration is rarely from our newsfeeds, this is perhaps unsurprising. There are also tales of homes being literally made, or at least decorated; reflections on the birth of children and the hope that parenthood offers and recognitions that home was something that time made somewhere to grow out of, beyond or away from. Home is somewhere that we feel a sense of belonging. Until, of course, we don’t.
MCd by the writer and creative writing teacher, Michael Stewart, they’ll award prizes in five categories – including poetry and flash fiction for 14-19 year old writers – and launch an anthology with 37 original pieces of writing by 34 writers. (Lit Fest has now published over 100 writers, many of them for the first time.) Copies of the anthology will also be available for purchase, in both print and e-book formats, along with previous issues.
Lit Fest’s support for local writers doesn’t stop there either.Submissions for its next themed online gathering of local writers – Dreams for Beltane, taking place on 1 May – close on 12 April: anyone wishing to celebrate any of 1 May’s many anniversaries in words will find submission details on the website.
And as one submissions door closes, another one opens: there’s another opportunity to submit new writing ahead of gives you another online event on 30 July to celebrate International Day of Friendship: entries close on 30 June.
And the penultimate event of this week’s Spring Festival gives you the chance to hear 17 of their favourite original pieces by local writers over the last eight years at a free Event – Raising Voices: A Chorus of Local Writers – at Waterstones at 5pm on Saturday.
As part of that event, they’ll also be launching an ambitious multimedia project that will locate on an interactive online map the texts and audio recordings of writing inspired by specific locations across the city – streets, houses, offices, schools, parks, trees, sculptures, playgrounds… – to capture stories of our relationship and responses to the city.
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MK Lit Fest: books, words, writers and ideas!
To book tickets for any of the Festival’s events for 2025– including the Online Programme and Bookshop Series events– visit the Festival website. You can also follow the Festival as @MKLitFest on Facebook, X, Threads, Bluesky or Instagram, or sign up for their email newsletter.
