Whitby Lit Fest 2026 Authors
Scroll down to discover some of the fantastic authors we’ve got lined up for this year’s Whitby Lit Fest.
Ann Cleeves
In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her Shetland series. In addition, she has been short listed for a CWA Dagger Awards – once for her short story The Plater, and twice for the Dagger in the Library award, which is awarded not for an individual book but for an author’s entire body of work.
Ann’s books have been translated into twenty languages. She’s a bestseller in Scandinavia and Germany. Her novels sell widely and to critical acclaim in the United States. Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 2007. It has been adapted for radio in Germany – and in the UK where it was a Radio Times pick of the day when it was first broadcast Radio adaptations of Raven Black and White Nights have both been repeated. A television adaptation of The Long Call, the first in Ann’s Two Rivers series set in North Devon, was broadcast in October 2021. Vera, the ITV adaptation starring Brenda Blethyn, ended after 14 series in January 2025 with the retirement of Brenda Blethy: Ann and Brenda both received Outstanding Contribution honours at the Royal Television Society awards ceremony on 15th February 2025, There have also been nine series of Shetland, based on – or inspired by – the characters and settings of her Shetland novels.
Mark Billingham
Having worked for some years as an actor and more recently as a TV writer and stand-up comedian Mark’s first crime novel was published in 2001.
Sleepyhead was an instant bestseller in the UK. It has been sold widely throughout the world and was published in the USA in the summer of 2002.
The series of crime novels featuring London-based detective Tom Thorne continued with Scaredy Cat and was followed by Lazybones, The Burning Girl, Lifeless, Buried, Death Message, Bloodline, From The Dead, Good As Dead, The Dying Hours, The Bones Beneath, Time Of Death, Love Like Blood, The Killing Habit, Their Little Secret, Cry Baby and the most recent The Murder Book. Mark is also the author of the standalone novels In The Dark, Rush Of Blood, Die Of Shame and his latest, Rabbit Hole.
A new series featuring DS Declan Miller began in 2023 with The Last Dance. The second in the series – The Wrong Hands – was published in 2024.
Mark is also a regular contributor to radio and TV and is a member of the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a combo of bestselling crime and thriller writers who performed at the Glastonbury Festival in 2019 and 2024.
An acclaimed television series based on the Thorne novels was screened on Sky One in Autumn 2010, starring David Morrissey as Tom Thorne. A series based on the novels In The Dark and Time Of Death was screened on BBC1 in 2017.
Dr Sian Williams
Dr Sian Williams, is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist, broadcaster and writer.
In her NHS work, she helps people manage acute anxiety, stress, and trauma, and has been honoured to work with Prince William in his support of mental health for the emergency services.
Alongside her psychology career, she is also a broadcaster with decades of experience. She has spent 40 years in TV and radio, mainly at the BBC, including over a decade hosting BBC Breakfast and many years as a newsreader on the main TV bulletins. She has also presented prime-time shows across the BBC, ITV, and C5.
On radio, she presents ‘Life Changing’ on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. To date, it has had more than seventeen million downloads across nine series. And over on BBC Radio 3 Unwind, she hosts a daily morning show called ‘Classical Unwind’, exploring the power of music to soothe the mind.
Her first book, ‘Rise: Surviving and Thriving after Trauma’, explores how we can rebuild after traumatic events shatter our lives, illustrated by experiences (including her own) and backed by science.
Her interest in the mind and brain has also led to several BBC Radio 4 series including: ‘The Thought Chamber’, ‘How to Have a Better Brain’ (described by ‘The Psychologist’ magazine as “touching and illuminating, a great listen”), and ‘The Science of Resilience’.
Joanne Harris
Joanne studied Modern and Mediaeval Languages at Cambridge and was a teacher for fifteen years, during which time she published three novels, including Chocolat (1999), which was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche.
Since then, she has written over 20 more novels, plus novellas, short stories, game scripts, the libretti for two short operas, several screenplays, a stage musical (with Howard Goodall) and three cookbooks. Her books are now published in over 50 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, has honorary doctorates in literature from the universities of Sheffield and Huddersfield, and has been a judge for the Whitbread Prize, the Orange Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Betty Trask Award, the Prima Donna Prize and the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science, as well as for the Fragrance Foundation awards for perfume and perfume journalism (for which she also received an award in 2017). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022. She is also a Fellow of the SOA.
She is a passionate advocate for authors’ rights, and was the Chair of the Society of Authors (SOA) for four years. She was a member of the Board of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) between 2018 and 2024.