Medway River Lit 2026 Preview
Here is a preview of the lineup of this year’s Medway River Lit festival, before booking and full listings go live at 5pm this afternoon.
Launch Chatham Library, Sat 31 Oct.
Launching at Chatham Library on the afternoon of 31 October, with a performance from multiple award-winning poet and new festival patron, Maggie Harris, supported by some of our own Youth Poets Laureate; the festival will be fulfilling its purpose once again to bring the biggest literary names to Medway while promoting the best writing that Medway itself has to offer. That day we’ll also hold our Local Author Fair in the library.
Fantasy fiction favourites and futures…
Returning to Medway River Lit this year are Ben Aaronovitch, creator of the phenomenally successful Rivers of London series, and Sunyi Dean, writer of The Girl With A Thousand Faces. Local writers Aimee Riddell and Georgia Spearing will be part of a panel on popular genre, Romantasy.
Join multi award winning novelists Claire North (Notes From The Burning Age), Natasha Pulley (The Mars House), and EF Swift (When There Are Wolves Again) for a discussion about writing books set in burning worlds on Sat 28 Nov.
Poetry in motion preview…
We are excited to host some of the UK’s best-known poets, plus local up-and-coming performers who will be showcasing their new books.
Medway River Lit patron Theresa Lola, will be supported by Charlotte Ansell and Dorothy Lehane on Thursday 12 Nov. John McCullough, Samatar Elmi, and Barry Fentiman Hall form another trio of poets on Fri 20 Nov. Jessica Mookherjee launches her new book The Universe Is An Animal on Sat 14 Nov.
A life: In colour
Local poets SM Jenkin, Clair Meyrick and Setareh Ebrahimi guest at the launch of a new book of art and poetry by the sadly missed Rosemary McLeish, A life: In colour, on Fri 6 Nov. We’ll also award this year’s Rosemary McLeish Poetry Prize.
Of course, there will be takeovers from Medway’s regular poetry nights – Big Trouble and Medway Poetry Night. Medway Poetry Night hosted by Chika Jones launches us into the festival on Friday 30 October. Big Trouble is the longest running Medway live lit night and something of a Kent legend. As well as the traditional open-mic they have two great special guests, Rachel Long and Cia Mangat.
If music be the food of love, play on…
We’re excited to host a whole day at the intersection of poetic and musical words at Sun Pier House on Saturday 21 November, Pierfest, with a reading from Patience Agbabi’s novel in verse Wonderland, followed by a Northern Soul disco! On the same day, we’ll also feature poet and musician Gabriel Moreno, and hear hip hop poems from Jake Nathan, as well as see poet-performer Naomi Wood’s sell-out show ‘Monster’.
We’ll have a chillout space specifically aimed at neurodivergent festival goers, curated by Tilley and Del – but all are welcome to Puffing and Wooling in the Community Space.
Come for the whole day, or pop in and out, it's going to be amazing!
Local writers close to our heart…
As ever, we focus on local writers; Jennifer Aaron-Foster, the writer of The Baby Whisperer, will tell us about her novel, plus Medway artist Simon Mills will introduce the second installment of his memoir Oi, pain’er, gotta bit o’ black? There will also be Adrian Lacey with his book Waving, Drowning, about mental health, friendship, and Live TV! Kent’s very own novelist, journalist, dominatrix, elderly model, and stand-up comedian Melissa Todd will be performing a new show based on her book Gag Writer on November 28th.
Storytelling and Mythology
Baden Prince Jnr is an Antiguan-born, UK-based storyteller, poet, writer and performer with more than 30 years’ experience in live literature and spoken word. He’ll be performing his show, What a woman! about his grandma on Sat 14 Nov.
Natalie Haynes (pictured at the top of this article) is a writer and broadcaster and – according to the Washington Post – a rock star mythologist. Her most recent novel, No Friend To This House, retells the story of the voyage of the Argo, and was a Sunday Times bestseller. She’ll be talking about her writing on Thurs 19 November.
Workshops
Of course, we’ll also be running a range of writing workshops for writers who’d like to improve their writing skills. These workshops are on Sunday afternoons at Nucleus Chatham.
Sun 1 Nov - Novels
Sun 8 Nov - Publishing 101
Sun 15 Nov - Enviro-Poetry
Sun 22 Nov – Telling Tales
In advance of the festival, we’ll also be running Made This Way, a series of three easy-going edu-creative workshops for neurodivergent adults. This is part of our Access and Engagement Project – a project to place disabled and neurodivergent writers at the core of our programming, funded by Arts Council England. Find out more about the project on this very blog.
Become a Festival Friend
We’re able to bring this year's amazing programme of authors and events to Medway on a Pay What You Can basis, with seed funding from Medway Council, and the support of the Arts Council England for our Access and Engagement project. If you can afford to pay something for the tickets then you can, but also, if you can't, you can still access our programme for free.
If you don't want to be bothered booking tickets for events, (or if you'd like to support us to develop the festival) we’ve also developed a Festival Friend supporter pass, where for £50, you’ll get access to all events without having to book, and as a thank you, an eco gift. Sign up here.
Comments