25/02/2026
BIG NEWS! We are very pleased to announce Clive Judd as Festival Programmer for Birmingham Literature Festival 2026.
CLIVE JUDD is an award-winning writer, theatre director, literary curator, and bookseller originally from Worcester, now based in Birmingham. His debut play HERE—winner of the Papatango Prize—was staged at the Southwark Playhouse in 2022 & is published by Nick Hern Books. His second play SABRINA—longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize in 2025—is currently in development with Emmerson & Ward Productions. Clive is the co-owner of Birmingham-based independent bookshop Voce Books, co-curator of the experimental prose night STORIE, & Festival Programmer for the Birmingham Literature Festival 2026.
When appointed, Clive said
"I am hugely looking forward to being a custodian for the next twelve months of the work of Shantel Edwards, the inspirational Festival Director & a curator I admire greatly, & to work with the Writing West Midlands team to devise a festival that speaks directly to the city: a festival for readers & writers, that will no doubt lean into the interests that have stood me in good stead so far; working-class writing, translated & world literature, & work that tracks in ways unusual the spaces & places that make us."
Clive joins us as a guest curator of the festival, while our festival director is on maternity leave.
📸 Jay Mason-Burns
