Richard Dawkins, The Hammerman Poet and a mysterious Swindon mountain will all feature in this year's Swindon Festival of Literature

The programme for the 32nd Swindon Festival of Literature was launched today at a packed gathering at Swindon Central Library.

The brand-new full-colour programme for this year’s Swindon Festival of Literature was unveiled in front of the great and the good including Marina Strinkovsky, SBC's Cabinet member for Placemaking and Planning with local musicians Ivy Green providing a lovely musical intro and outro to the event.

This year, the Festival, which takes place from 5 May to 11 May, includes authors, performers, talks, discussions, readings, storytelling, films, and shows at the Arts Centre, Lawn Woods, Town Gardens, Swindon Hub, Richard Jefferies Museum, Create Studios, Bert’s Books, Stanton Park, iCast Creative Hub, and Lower Shaw Farm.

Here are just some of the highlights...

The festival features a host of writers and will kick off as always with the Dawn Chorus at 5.30am on Monday 5 May in Lawn Woods.

On Tuesday 6 May Oxford University Professor Sir Muir Gray will be talking about his book 'Sod 70!' about ageing better and living longer at Swindon Arts Centre at 12.30pm.

Then on Wednesday 7 May, Swindon's Town Gardens will host Pop-up Poetry in the park hosted by Swindon community poet Tony Hillier from 11am.

At 12.30pm on the same day, author Harriet Hitchen will be talking about her book Swindon Mountain where a 'mountain' appears unexpectedly overlooking the town.

Professor Richard Dawkins will be discussing his latest book The Genetic Book of the Dead, an exploration of the untapped potential of DNA to transform our understanding of evolution, at a talk at Swindon Arts Centre on Devizes Road on Wednesday 7 May at 6.30pm.

On Thursay 8 May at 12.30pm at the Arts Centre,  local writer will be holding a talk called 'Swindon Seen - Through Fact and Fiction, Past and Present' where he will talk about some of Swindon's stories and storymakers including The Hammerman Poet, Aflred Williams.

On Friday 9 May you will have a chance to catch a comedy double helping at Swindon Arts Centre with Ivo Graham at 6.30pm and Alistair McGowan at 8pm.

A Writers and Readers Day will take place at Swindon Hub on Saturday 10 May from 10.30am to 4.30pm which will include talks, a book fair and creative writing workshops.

The Festival Finale takes place at 7pm on Sunday 11 May at Swindon Arts Centre and features a feast of stories, poems, songs, acrobatics, circus, wordplay and much more.

Festival organiser Matt Holland said: "The Festival is now firmly established on Wiltshire’s cultural calendar. It is loved locally and held in high regard nationally.

"Authors quite like it too! Jon Snow hailed the Festival ‘remarkable, and a real surprise: the Tate Modern of the M4 corridor’; John Major said, ‘perfect and punctual’; Joan Bakewell, deemed it 'delightful'; Prof John Carey ‘terrific’; Melvyn Bragg ‘down to earth’; Will Self ‘sans spelling mistakes’; Chris Redmond ‘lots of heart and zero pretence’; Shaun B ‘comparable to love’; and John & Mary D ‘one of the main reasons we moved to Swindon!’

"The Festival of Literature continues to thrive thanks to its many followers and funding from Arts Council England, whose support represents recognition of the growth, value, and popularity of Literature-related activities in Swindon.

"Other main partners and loyal sponsors of the Festival are Swindon Borough Council, Swindon Artswords, and Lower Shaw Farm."

For more information and the full rundown visit www.swindonfestivalofliterature.co.uk