About Off the Shelf
Sheffield's Off the Shelf Festival of Words is 22 this year!
The festival has grown into one of the UK’s, most popular and exciting events attracting some of the best known names in literature and the media. The festival offers a wide range of events for audiences of all ages including readings, workshops, storytelling, exhibitions, talks, walks, poetry, competitions and more.
Previous festivals have included appearances by Claire Tomalin, Tony Benn, John Pilger, Jeremy Bowen, George Alagaih, Peter Hook, Sir Michael Parkinson, Kate Adie, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Ben Okri, Rose Tremain, Claire Tomalin, Sarah Waters, Nick Hornby, Simon Armitage, Benjamin Zephaniah, Doris Lessing, Michael Frayn, Hilary Mantel, Ian Rankin, Michael Wood, Michelle Paver, Will Hutton, Jamie Oliver, Vic Reeves, Michael Morpurgo, Caryl Phillips, Carol Ann Duffy, Will Self, Jackie Kay, Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Motion, Michael Palin, Michael Rosen, Anthony Browne, The Hairy Bikers, Michael Peace, Malorie Blackman, Val McDermid, Alastair Campbell, Jacqueline Wilson, Jenny Éclair, Richard Ford, Sharon Olds, Cressida Cowell, Lady Antonia Fraser, Sandi Toksvig and Stephen Fry to name just a few.
The October 2012 festival took place over 35 days in over 80 venues right across the city including the Crucible Theatre, Showroom Cinema, University of Sheffield Students’ Union, Sheffield Hallam University and community libraries and was attended by an audience of over 25,000 people. The programme offered 136 events. The Guest Curator of the festival was poet Benjamin Zephaniah. Each year the festival commissions an artist or illustrator to create the front cover of the brochure. See the archive page to see some of these beautiful covers.
We do hope that you will be able to enjoy an Off the Shelf event this year. The full programme of events will be on this website at the end of July 2013 – see Programm
The Festival is organised by Sheffield Events Team – Sheffield City Council
Festival Team - Maria de Souza, Su Walker and Lesley Webster
Festival Administration - Michelle Taylor-Steer
Festival Bookseller - Rhyme and Reason
Tel: 0114 273 4400 / 273 4716
e-mail: offtheshelf@sheffield.gov.uk