Latitude’s Debut Fiction Series at The Bookshop
We are incredibly excited to announce the launch of our first-ever Debut Fiction series. Hosted by Sarah Gwonyoma, Literary Editor of Red Magazine and one of the most distinctive voices in British literary culture, the series will spotlight seven brand-new authors and their stunning literary debuts – all fearless in their ambition and extraordinary in their range.
Liz Allan’s In Bloom follows four fatherless girls in a dying Australian coastal town, told in a ferocious collective ‘we’ that crackles with teenage indignation, in the tradition of The Virgin Suicides; it was named an Observer Best Debut Novel of 2026.
Phil Melanson’s Florenzer is a queer historical novel set in fifteenth-century Florence, following Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and a priest at the heart of the Pazzi conspiracy, compared to Hilary Mantel in its historical rigour and immediacy.
Imani Thompson’s Honey follows a Black Briton of Caribbean heritage at Cambridge who discovers a talent for murder, starting with a bee flicked into a professor’s drink. Sold in a ten-way Frankfurt auction across eight countries, Kirkus called it ‘Fleabag channelled by Valerie Solanas’.
Eden McKenzie-Goddard’s Smallie is an intergenerational Windrush story spanning 1950s Barbados to 2018 London, in which a family must find a man their mother once loved to prove her right to remain in Britain. Caleb Azumah Nelson called it ‘gorgeous and heartwrenching.’
Jem Calder’s I Want You to Be Happy renders an abortive romance between a frustrated novelist and an aspiring poet with devastating lightness; Sally Rooney called Calder ‘an extraordinarily gifted writer’ and the Sunday Times tipped it as the zeitgeist couple-novel of 2026.
Tobi Coventry’s He’s the Devil is a queer horror novel about a good boy whose new flatmate brings something monstrous into the flat; the Literary Review called it ‘confident, confrontational and compulsively readable’, and Coventry, a former book scout who lives in East Sussex in a town full of haunted pubs, is a genuinely original new voice.
Sufiyaan Salam’s Wimmy Road Boyz follows three boys on a single surreal night on Manchester’s Curry Mile; winner of the #MerkyBooks New Writers’ Prize, the Guardian called Salam ‘a standard bearer for a new generation of literary novelists.’
Also at The Bookshop, Martha Kearney returns to curate her nature writing strand on the Friday of Latitude. Joining Patrick Barkham, Luke Barley, Harriet Rix, Charles Foster and David Appleton are four newly confirmed names. Angela Harding, wildlife printmaker whose illustrated Wilding won Children’s Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2025 British Book Awards. Tor Falcon, Norfolk landscape artist whose Sugar Beet Moon won the East Anglian Book Awards non-fiction prize. Nick Crane, presenter of the BAFTA-winning Coast, brings his new book The Path More Travelled. Lucy Lapwing, naturalist and Springwatch contributor, whose debut Love Is a Toad explores our complex, contradictory relationship with the natural world over the course of a year in the field.
On Saturday at The Bookshop, Latitude expands its partnership with the National Poetry Centre – the brainchild of Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. For our 20th anniversary, the NPC brings a programme that spans the full breadth of what poetry can be: Small Distractions Club invites band members to read their creative writing aloud, whether it be poetry, prose, notes app musings, memories or dreamscapes; poet, rapper and world-record beatboxer Testament,Chortle Award-winning comedian and poet Charlotte Cropper; debut pamphleteer and Writing Squad coordinator Tallulah Howarth; and spoken word artist Kurly McGeachie, who has engaged thousands of young people with creative literacy for over two decades.
Monica Feria-Tinta, the British-Peruvian barrister who brought the world’s first ‘rights of nature’ case before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, discusses her book A Barrister for the Earth.
Poetry, Conversations and Literature at The Listening Post
Sunday Times bestselling author Emma Gannon brings her tenth book, A Creative Compass, a guide to creative self-trust in an AI-driven world; Elizabeth Gilbert called her ‘the voice of a generation.’
In 2006, Latitude became the first UK festival to give poetry its own dedicated stage, and our 20th edition honours our proud relationship with the art of the spoken word. Alongside the already-announced line up of exceptional poetic prowess including Dr John Cooper Clarke, Inua Ellams, Salena Godden, Hollie McNish, Joelle Taylor and more is John Berkavitch, former UK Slam Poetry Champion, neurodivergent artist and Glastonbury’s poet-in-residence in 2025, whose work fuses spoken word, breakdancing and physical theatre.
Jan Carson brings her fifth novel Few and Far Between: an alternate history of Northern Ireland imagining what would have happened if a 1958 plan to drain Lough Neagh had been carried through, creating a utopian archipelago in the heart of the Troubles. Edinburgh’s Makar Michael Pedersen brings his debut novel Muckle Flugga – his prose debut Boy Friends was a Sunday Times Critics’ Choice and his poetry has drawn praise from Stephen Fry, Irvine Welsh, and Ocean Vuong. Child.org, which works with communities in Kenya to increase women’s access to life-saving maternal and newborn health services, presents Whose Story Is It Anyway? – a panel exploring how organisations can tell stories of vulnerability with creativity and dignity.
From bold new fiction and boundary-pushing poetry to thought-provoking conversations, this year’s literature programme promises a weekend of discovery, inspiration and unforgettable storytelling. Join us in the beautiful surroundings of Henham Park this July and experience everything Latitude has to offer – secure remaining tickets at the link below.
