Over four days, Kings Heath will be buzzing with author events for young and old, music events and new artistic commissions that celebrate the connections between literature and music through spoken word, film, dance and sound.

The programme includes Robin Ince, General Levy, the Bookshop Band, Mike Gayle and Catherine O’Flynn plus Poetry on Demand and a new commission from Adèle Oliver featuring new work from Casey Bailey and Ryan Dre Sinclair. Tickets are on sale from 9am Tuesday 5 March, the full programme is available here

Catherine and Claire, co-owners at The Heath Bookshop said: “We are so pleased to be announcing such a packed programme for our first ever The Heath Bookshop Literature and Music Festival, we’ve aimed to put together a Festival that offers something different to audiences. We’ve got musicians talking about their lives and the books they have written and we have writers talking about music. With music in the bookshop and literature events in music venues we can’t wait to welcome audiences to the Festival.”

Peter Knott, Midlands Area Director at Arts Council England, said: “We’re delighted to support the first The Heath Bookshop Literature and Music Festival, thanks to over £19,000 from National Lottery Project Grants.

“Kings Heath has a vibrant arts and culture scene and it’s incredibly exciting to have such a varied programme of creatives from the worlds of music and literature coming to the area this April.”

The Festival kickstarts on Thursday 18 April with award-winning stand up, presenter and author Robin Ince taking festival-goers on a journey across Britain exploring his lifelong love of bookshops and books, hosted at Queensbridge School.