The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival has today revealed its free programme of 100+ events and activities taking over Montpellier Gardens and Cheltenham Town from 10-19 October.
Collage (left to right) Jordan Stephens, Adele Zeynep Walton, Tasha Ghouri
Alongside its ticketed programme featuring literary greats and stars including Larry Lamb, Ian McEwan, Kate Mosse, Jacqueline Wilson, Alan Davies, Cressida Cowell, Kaliane Bradley and Oti Mabuse, 30% of this year's programme remains free-to-see, making the Festival Village a welcoming destination for all ages. Festival-goers can experience everything from fantasy map-making and personalised book recommendations to community writing showcases, fairytale inspired ceilidhs and more, plus families can embark on an immersive adventure to Wonderland and its much-loved Lit Crawl returns to take over Cheltenham venues around town.
The Literature Festival’s free-to-see programme emphasises the power of storytelling to inspire, connect and enable audiences to reflect on topical, real-world issues, while championing emerging voices across its free stages. This comes as Cheltenham Festivals, the arts charity behind Cheltenham Literature Festival as well as festivals and year-round outreach and education programmes in Jazz, Science and Music, celebrates its 80th anniversary with a pledge to give 80,000 children access to cultural experiences and education in 2025.
Collage (left to right) Jemimah Wei, Joel Rochester, Jack Edwards
Championing the voices of tomorrow
VOICEBOX returns for its fifth year, bringing youth voices and ideas to the forefront through a programme of talks, workshops, music, comedy and more.
Showcasing emerging and established talent and focusing on everything from environmental regeneration to navigating modern masculinity and using our voices to create change, the pop-up venue will spotlight the topics and trends that matter to young adults. Highlights include: Love Island and Strictly star Tasha Ghouri reflecting on how our differences can be our greatest strength, Rizzlekicks star Jordan Stephens joins This Ends Now cofounder Sydney McAllister, campaigner Jess Davies and Adele Zeynep Walton to redefine healthy masculinity, and Megan Jayne Crabbe and Ro Mitchell talk self-worth and rewriting limited narratives around body image while reclaiming the best version of ourselves.
Continuing its commitment to talent development across the publishing industry, #Merky Books returns for a VOICEBOX proof party looking ahead to 2026's must reads. ESEA Lit Fest, the UK's award-winning celebration of East and South East Asian literature and culture, takes over VOICEBOX with an afternoon of events featuring Booker Prize-longlisted Tash Aw, debut novelist Jemimah Wei, South Korean novelist Park Seolyeon, acclaimed translator Anton Hur, and fantasy author A Y Chao in conversation with co-host of Eastern Hunnies podcast, Mel Legarda.
Brand new for 2025, VOICEBOX has collaborated with The Bookseller to launch the New Adult Book Prize, championing new adult fiction. The prize’s first ever winner will be crowned in a special event. Continuing the BookTok theme, content creators Joel Rochester and Coco Omer join author Bea Fitzgerald to share their recommendations. The internet’s resident librarian Jack Edwards will host a live edition of his Inklings Book Club, with special guest Saba Sams.
43% of the programme features local talent: Gloucestershire-based journalist Jack Shute returns with the Queer Takeover to tackle LGBTQ+ issues and students and new writers from across Gloucestershire introduce Star Crossed, a new 2025 writing anthology. In an event co-curated with Lives of Colour, students from the Cheltenham Education Partnership network will take part in an event featuring journalist Natalie Morris that explores inclusivity, and the student-led podcast Spill the Tea returns with special guest, TV presenter Jess French, who will be talking about her career and passion for conservation.
Sabrina Fearon-Melville, inaugural winner of the VOICEBOX FUTURE VOICES Award, hosts a live episode of her Third Spaces podcast, in conversation with author of Booker Prize-nominated My Sister, The Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite. VOICEBOX also host creators-in-residence, Lonely Arts Club.
Elsewhere, demonstrating VOICEBOX’s commitment to creating change through culture, in partnership with Howden, VOICEBOX will host THE STUDENT VOICE: REAL TALK ON MENTAL HEALTH, an afternoon of events that will invite students aged 16-30 to share their perspectives on how to shape mental health services for young people.
Collage (left to right) Oyinkan Braithwaite, Ann Morgan, Emily Itami
Bringing communities together
At the heart of the Festival’s Free Programme, The Huddle offers a welcoming space dedicated to community and conversation as part of the Festival’s Read the World theme. Bringing together voices from close to home and across the globe, the programme combines post-event discussions, music, storytelling sessions to encourage connections and discussion.
Highlights include a World Music Showcase, presenting uplifting performances that span cultures and traditions and a Re-reading Childhood Books event, which reflects on muchloved children’s books and how their meaning shifts when revisited in adulthood. Local voices will be celebrated across the programme, with dedicated sessions giving a platform to emerging literary talent. Literary Explorer in Residence Ann Morgan will be in conversation with Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov about the value of reading across borders, while Festival Guest Curator Oyinkan Braithwaite explores the rituals, traditions and customs that shape fiction alongside author Emily Itami.
The Huddle also hosts storytelling sessions, bespoke events from Waterstones staff sharing their book recommendations, and an important discussion from No Child Left Behind, where young people reflect on their Year of Youth Action and the issues that matter most to them.
The Hush, supported by The Methodist Church, returns with activities to refresh body and mind including candle-making and kintsugi. Also returning for its second year is The Snug, welcoming book and language lovers to a peaceful retreat, featuring everything from badgemaking, quill crafting and fantasy-map drawing.
Fan favourite Lit Crawl returns for 2025, bringing literary revelry over pubs, bars, coffee shops and bookshops around Cheltenham Town: highlights include miniature bookmaking, spellbinding poetry, a fairytale ceilidh inspired by the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, an interactive whodunnit murder mystery and an Alice in Wonderland quiz.
Book lovers can enjoy the best of times in Times Square, a vibrant hub of cultural activities from The Times and The Sunday Times. Guests can kick back with a complimentary newspaper, continue the conversation post-event in the Times Radio Speaker’s Corner or unwind in the TLS Reading Area to reflect away from the hustle and bustle of the Festival Village. In addition, Festival-goers can test themselves with world-famous puzzles from The Times and The Sunday Times featuring crosswords, sudokus, word puzzles and quizzes. There will also be the chance to enjoy a daily dose of complimentary wine tastings at the Headline Bar’s Wine Hour, hosted by The Sunday Times wine columnist Will Lyons, who will be joined by a different guest each day to celebrate the very best of the Sunday Times Wine Club.
The Benefact Group will host a dedicated lounge space, offering visitors the opportunity to explore stories from thousands of charities that have benefitted from its giving as part of its commitment to donating all available profits to charity.
A family day out
The free programme offers a full day of discovery for families, with a wide range of activities designed to spark children’s creativity and imaginations.
Families can experience Return to Wonderland, a reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale inspired by Anna James’ Alice with a Why, complete with the chance to meet the Mad Hatter. Across the Festival Village, walkabout performances bring favourite book characters to life, including the White Rabbit.
Highlights also include The Escape Trail, inspired by Christopher Edge’s The Escape, an interactive challenge where participants unlock levels and race to complete the trail. In The Den, children can enjoy comic-making, puppet play, dressing up, a sensory nook and adventure trails, while the Story Shack hosts storytelling sessions featuring tales from around the world.
The Waterstones Children’s Bookshop provides a space to browse, discover new titles, and meet authors after their events. Meanwhile, Tales from Acorn Wood celebrates 25 years of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s beloved series.
Nicola Tuxworth, Head of Programming for Cheltenham Literature Festival, said: “Every year we’re thrilled to be able to share this stellar programme of free events with our audiences, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. The breadth and diversity of our programme continues to give voice to the very best emerging writers, while showcasing the talents of our local community in a celebration of performance, spoken word and beyond.”