As in previous years, Royal Holloway, University of London, the Runnymede International Literary Association and Runnymede Borough Council, the principal festival partners, are working together to bring a programme of literary activities to Runnymede.

The international literary festival will begin, on Friday 10 March with a poetry reading by the American poet Michael Heller and two London poets, Jeff Hilson and Redell Olsen. Over the next two weeks, there will be a series of events on campus, open to staff, students and the general public, including Dr Harry Newman’s Paper Stage; a talk about To Walk Invisible, Sally Wainwright’s recent film about the Bronte sisters by Dr Siv Jansson, the literary adviser to the project; Professor David Herd on the University of Kent project, Refugee Tales; and Dr James Smith on ‘Taking Back Control: Understanding the New Populism’. The festival also includes the launch of the latest anthology of writing from the MA in Creative Writing at Keats’s House Library in Hampstead on March 15.