Festival team

Festival chief executive and director: Sally Dunsmore

Festival board directors: George Warren (Chairman), Graham Benson (Deputy Chairman), Ben Okri OBE, Carole Allan, Kate Farquhar-Thomson, Paul Simons, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton LVO MBE DL

Festival president: Miles Young

Special advisor: Tony Byrne

President Emeritus: John Harris

Director of children’s and young people’s programme: Andrea Reece andrea.reece@zen.co.uk

Strategic advisor: Lucian Hudson

American promotional consultant: Gary Zarr

Executive consultant – film, television and theatre: Graham Benson

Corporate consultants: Siren Communications Ltd

Website and content editor: Derek Holmes

Graphic design: Stafford & Stafford

Festival manager: Helen Porter

Assistant to special advisor: Sarah Burch

Director of academic programmes: Jem Poster

PR and Assistant to the director: Katie Read

Programme printers: Seacourt Ltd Oxford

Digital strategy & website design: BearRamElk

Consultant Chef: Paul Bloomfield

Sheldonian Theatre events manager: Ben Truesdale

Director of the crime writing programme: Triona Adams

Photography: KT Bruce

Festival stewards: We also thank all the voluntary festival stewards for their time and generous support throughout the festival. If you are interested in volunteering at the festival please contact volunteers@oxfordliteraryfestival.org

Patrons: Dame Joan Bakewell, Professor Colin Blakemore, Professor John Carey, Professor Richard Dawkins, Daisy Goodwin, Joanne Harris, Peter Kemp, Mark Lawson, The Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Lord Patten of Barnes, CH, PC, Sir Peter Stothard, Professor Ian Goldin, Alex Preston, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Title partner

International radio partner

Festival ideas partner

Festival cultural partner

Partner of Jewish programme

Supporter of Italian programme

Supporters of the Irish programme

MIT Press. Sponsors of the programme of American literature and culture

Festival London hotel partner

Festival on-site and online bookseller

The festival hotel

Festival academic partner

Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture

Patron donor for the programme of Irish literature and culture

Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture

Worcester College

Lincoln College

12th St Hilda's day at the festival

St Cross College: Festival college partner.

Woodstock

Sponsor of programme on science and medicine

Festival green room sponsor

Alumni Office

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Local radio partner

Regional media partner

Oxford University Images

K T Bruce Photography

Estate agents

Foodbuy

Corporate consultants

Wines of Tuscany

Wines of the Douro Valley

Festival information:

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.

The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners

Title partner

International radio partner

Festival ideas partner

Festival cultural partner

Partner of Jewish programme

Supporter of Italian programme

Supporters of the Irish programme

MIT Press. Sponsors of the programme of American literature and culture

Festival London hotel partner

Festival on-site and online bookseller

The festival hotel

Festival academic partner

Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture

Patron donor for the programme of Irish literature and culture

Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture

Worcester College

Lincoln College

12th St Hilda's day at the festival

St Cross College: Festival college partner.

Woodstock

Sponsor of programme on science and medicine

Festival green room sponsor

Alumni Office

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Local radio partner

Regional media partner

Oxford University Images

K T Bruce Photography

Estate agents

Foodbuy

Corporate consultants

Wines of Tuscany

Wines of the Douro Valley