The Chipping Norton Festival of Art and Literature

Chipping Norton Literary Festival ran for a dozen years, welcoming over 1,000 authors to 550 events over four day weekends each April. The festival was founded in 2012 by bestselling author and former Chipping Norton resident Clare Mackintosh , then run by non resident Jenny Dee from 2016. In 2015 Chipping Norton Literary Festival started to pay authors a share of the event’s profits, as well as travel and accommodation costs, which worked out at nearly £100 per hour for authors. Sadly the trustees disbanded the organisation in 2024.

The Chipping Norton Festival of Art and Literature hopes to reanimate the spirit of the festival that captivated the town and filled it with the spirit of literature and we welcome any, and all help or leadership in doing so.

The first festival is planned to take place from June 17 21 2027, to coincide with the solstice.

We hope to include a full retrospective of the films of Tarkovsky, a competition for the best shop window, a literary quiz, artist's walks, poetry in the local Hook Norton brewery, hopefully a festival campsite in a nearby field with a bonfire and an outdoor screening of Carry On Camping presented by the actor Christopher Ecclestone, a performance art programme, underwater poetry at the Lido (where Jeremy Clarkson famously submerged a Rolls Royce), a Midsummer's eve literary character fancy dress ball in the Humphrey Repton designed Town Hall, with a sting quartet followed by DJs exclusively playing records recorded in the Chipping Norton Recording Studios. The following morning those who wish can then make the traditional 90 minute walk to the Rollright Stones, the local megalithic Circle, and join the Solstice celebrations for dawn at 04:46am and or the Solstice at 3:10 PM . The Hawkstone megalith is closer, and we would love to know who owns it.

We aspire to sell books, provide a free children’s programme, work with local schools to promote literacy, and are open to all offers of participation, leadership, help, or cooperation.

Please visit the website and get involved! https://www.chippingnortonfestivalofartandliterature.com/