{"id":2126,"date":"2025-10-25T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jusmedia.co.uk\/360wire\/?p=2126"},"modified":"2025-10-25T05:40:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T04:40:18","slug":"off-the-shelf-returns-for-another-year-of-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jusmedia.co.uk\/360wire\/2025\/10\/25\/off-the-shelf-returns-for-another-year-of-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"Off The Shelf returns for another year of Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Off The Shelf, the month-long literature festival, has gotten underway in Sheffield. The event, which is hosted and run by the University of Sheffield, is the largest literature festival in the North and goes on from the 10th of October to the 10th of November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now in its 34th year, Off the Shelf brings the best of the UK\u2019s literary world to Sheffield, welcoming Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq, and Horrible Histories creator Terry Deary among its headline guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOver 20,000 people attend the month-long festival. Credit: Off the Shelf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Pip Strafford, Marketing and Communications Manager, said that writers want to come to Sheffield due to how established the festival is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo the team goes to London every year and they meet up with the publishers. So it’s when people have a book out that year, promoting their book and their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd then we meet with the publishers, we select and curate the festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe attract international and national talent to the city, because we\u2019re a really established festival, people love coming to the festival. We have a fantastic reputation. People love the city.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The festival attracts over 20,000 visitors over the course of the month, and the University works with several other collaborators to hold the event, such as LTI Korea, the Japan Foundation and Speaking Volumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Strafford said that Off The Shelf works with a lot of venues and hosts in theatres around the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very much collaborative, but it really is the point of the festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s to put Sheffield on the cultural scene for literary work. The spoken word, the written work, It\u2019s about making the city more culturally vibrant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat makes us more attractive as a destination venue for our audience, but also I do think that it makes the city more exciting, particularly during the autumn period.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the festival isn\u2019t just about headline acts. Off The Shelf also gives local writers the chance to stage their own events, supported in previous years by Arts Council funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCredit: Off the Shelf.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Pip Strafford said the funding has been vital in helping them deliver more community-focused events, but they weren\u2019t able to secure it this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really huge advocates of supporting local talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We commission them to come to the festival and put on events in previous years, when we\u2019ve had funding from the arts council. Unfortunately, we weren\u2019t successful this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven though we\u2019re not able to do that this year, we\u2019ve still involved a number of local authors, local poets, and took them to perform at the festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat gives them that platform to position themselves in a way that they\u2019ve played in such a big festival such as ours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the festival continues despite funding challenges, Off The Shelf remains a main part of Sheffield\u2019s cultural calendar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Off The Shelf, the month-long literature festival, has gotten underway in Sheffield. The event, which is hosted and run by the University of Sheffield, is the largest literature festival in the North and goes on from the 10th of October to the 10th of November. Now in its 34th year, Off the Shelf brings the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":2128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[231,18,105],"tags":[149,131,43],"class_list":["post-2126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-infocus","category-sheffield","tag-culture","tag-in-focus","tag-sheffield"],"yoast_head":"\n
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