Gloucestershire Historic Churches Trust GHCT
Donate Tickets

Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival: a small community event with a big idea

In a village church in South Gloucestershire, a simple idea has been bringing people together around books, reading and the joy of words for more than a decade.

The Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival was founded 11 years ago with an ambitious but straightforward aim: to make literature accessible, affordable and enjoyable for the whole community. Since then, it has evolved into an annual celebration at St Mary the Virgin in Hawkesbury, bringing authors, poets, artists and readers together for a day of conversation, ideas and stories.

It is a modest event, run on a shoestring, but its ambition goes far beyond its size.

And the story behind it begins with a much wider concern: how to encourage people to read for pleasure.

Festival founder Debbie Young was working for Gloucestershire charity Read for Good when the idea first took shape. The charity, formerly known as Readathon, encourages children to discover the joy of reading and provides books and reading support to children in hospital.

That experience inspired Debbie to think about how the same enthusiasm for reading could be encouraged among adults in her own community. The result was the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival, an event designed not simply to promote books, but to celebrate reading as something pleasurable, sociable and accessible to everyone.

Her commitment to that cause extends well beyond the Festival. Debbie has also established and runs a Little Free Library in the bus stop at the centre of Hawkesbury Upton, with separate bookcases for adults and younger readers. She supports another Gloucestershire charity, Read With Me, which sends volunteers into schools to hear children read and organises free book-related activities in community centres during the school holidays.

Books are clearly more than a hobby for Debbie. She is also the author of 18 cosy mystery novels, published by Boldwood Books.

"You could say my life revolves around books and St Mary's," she says.

The Festival's local roots are particularly significant at a time when concerns about literacy and reading are increasingly prominent nationally.

Recent research from the National Literacy Trust shows that children's reading enjoyment remains worryingly low. There is an equally significant challenge among adults. Research shows that 18% of adults aged 16 to 65 in England, around 6.6 million people, have very low literacy skills. Low literacy can affect employment, confidence, access to information and everyday life.

Hawkesbury Upton Literature- Festival

Against that backdrop, encouraging people to discover, or rediscover, the pleasure of reading matters.

The Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival is not a literacy programme in the conventional sense. It does something perhaps equally important: it makes reading social, welcoming and fun. It creates an opportunity for people to meet writers, hear stories brought to life, ask questions, discover unfamiliar books and talk about ideas with other readers.

And crucially, it does so without putting cost at the centre of the experience.

Tickets are deliberately kept to £10 for a full day of talks, readings and panel discussions. Visitors receive refreshments throughout the day and a £2 book voucher for the Festival's pop-up bookshop. Authors are able to sell signed copies of their books and, just as importantly, spend time talking directly with readers.

But perhaps one of the Festival's most distinctive achievements is the way it opens up a village church to people who might otherwise never cross its threshold.

The audience comes not only from Hawkesbury and the surrounding villages but from across Gloucestershire, as well as Bath and Bristol. Some visitors have no religious affiliation and may never otherwise have reason to visit St Mary's. For them, the Festival offers a different kind of encounter with a parish church: not through a service, but through books, conversation, creativity and community.

It also works in the other direction. People who come primarily for literature discover a beautiful historic church that they may never have known was there.

The Festival represents something bigger than a literary event. It is an example of how community spaces, including parish churches, can be used creatively to bring people together and reach beyond their traditional audiences.

There is also a practical benefit to the church itself. Each year, the Festival makes a significant donation to the Friends of St Mary's, helping with the ongoing upkeep of the building. What begins with a conversation about books has a tangible impact on the preservation of a much-loved community space.

And Debbie believes the idea could be replicated elsewhere.

She would be delighted to share her experience with other churches interested in developing their own literature festivals or book-based community events. With a network of author friends and contacts across the county, she could also help other churches identify potential speakers and contributors.

For churches looking for new ways to connect with their communities, the Hawkesbury Upton model offers an inspiring example: start with something people already love, make it welcoming and affordable and use the space you already have.

Perhaps most encouragingly, the Festival has achieved all this without a large organisation, substantial budget or elaborate infrastructure. It has grown from one person's determination to share a love of literature, supported by authors, artists, volunteers, the church and an audience willing to turn up and take part.

At a time when national attention is rightly focused on literacy, reading for pleasure and the inequalities that can result when people struggle to access the written word, initiatives such as the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival are a reminder that positive change can begin locally.

Sometimes it begins with a church, a pile of books, a community bookshelf and a group of people prepared to share their enthusiasm.

The Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival takes place annually on the last Saturday of September at St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury.

The 2026 event will be held on Saturday 26 September.