"In 2013, we are relaunching the Huddersfield Literature Festival and we need your support. We hope you will join us in making the 2013 Festival a success and continuing to build on the reputation that the Festival has established for hosting great events, attracting big name authors and promoting new writing.

In past years, the Festival has welcomed writers as diverse as Simon Armitage, Anne Fine, A L Kennedy, Andrew Motion, David Nobbs, David Peace, Alexei Sayle and Mark E Smith.

Having worked in the publishing industry for many years, as well as interviewing authors for the national and regional press, I was delighted to be offered the opportunity to be involved with this year's Festival.

Whether you are an avid reader or simply want to help lift the profile of the town, please keep checking back on the site and show your support by booking on to events and spreading the word about the Festival.

I look forward to meeting you at Festival events; meanwhile, please feel free to contact me if you would like to get involved in any way. "

Michelle Hodgson, Festival Director

Picture credit: Jonathan Jacob

"A literature festival such as this provides writers with an all-too-rare opportunity to take centre stage and enjoy the limelight for themselves. Some of them are extremely good at this... in fact, I am not sure that I should really approve! But of course I do. This should be yet another wonderful Huddersfield Literature Festival."

Sir Patrick Stewart, actor and Chancellor of the University.

"It’s an honour to be a Patron of The Huddersfield Literature Festival. Huddersfield is a shining beacon on the map of literature in Britain and a part of GPS: Global Poetry System. Before CNN, before Sky and the BBC it is our writers and poets that we depended on to explore and share the infinitesimal and vast inner and outer world. If you have never been to a reading before make this your first time. And if you have, welcome back to a week packed with events. Change your Climate."

Lemn Sissay, poet