About the Wrexham Carnival of Words
The Wrexham Carnival of Words is an annual literature festival held in the city of Wrexham, North Wales, for one week at the end of April each year. The festival held its first events in 2015 and celebrated its 10th birthday in 2024. It has grown in size, stature and impact from those early days and is now a regular feature on the festival scene of Wrexham County Borough.
The Carnival of Words is organised each year by an enthusiastic band of book addicts, each with their own knowledge, skills and expertise. Everyone has their own role and each one plays their part in bringing the Carnival to local readers and booklovers. Our mission has always been to deliver inspiring cultural experiences to Wrexham and its communities through a varied programme of events about books and reading. We incorporate every genre of literature and host events in both Welsh and English. Poetry features strongly in our programme and our ‘Poetry – Live and Dangerous’ is now an annual highlight. The festival is funded entirely by ticket sales, sponsorship, grants and donations.
Although public events could not be held during the pandemic, the festival moved to online digital events as the committee focused on enabling free content and engagement for the community. Since 2022, the festival has returned to its full programme of events, including the return of the much-loved ‘Historical Fiction Night’ and the ‘Murder Mystery’ – which now uses scripts written by our audience!
Throughout the year we host ‘Meet the Author’ events with a varied and successful programme for all ages and reading tastes.
Our strapline – “Not just any literary festival!” encompasses our passion for what we do and our commitment to bringing quality book events to Wrexham.
The Committee
Dave McCall
Dave McCall is one of the Carnival’s general organisers and has a particular passion for our historical fiction events. Under his pen name, David Ebsworth, he’s a successful author telling stories from history that he wishes somebody else had already written but which seem to have been overlooked – until now!
Dylan Hughes
Dylan Hughes is the Festival Director and a fluent Welsh speaker. He was Libraries Officer for Wrexham Council for 18 years and he has represented libraries on a national level and worked on all-Wales projects, being given the Welsh Librarian of the Year award in 2016. He remains very committed to the Wrexham Carnival of Words and sees a bright future for local literary events.
Debbie Williams
With too many years’ experience of working in libraries and working with authors to count, Debbie arranges many of the author events, the marketing materials and provides organisational support from the library during the Carnival of Words. She is passionate about reading and providing opportunities for readers to meet with authors.
Paul Clifton
Poet Paul Clifton born from London roots but made in Wrexham is the Carnival of Words so called social media guru and event organiser of mainly, you guessed it, poetry events. Paul has a passion for writing poetry and has three published collections.
Paul Jeorrett
Paul Jeorrett is the Deputy Festival Director. He was University Librarian for what is now Wrexham University for over 25 years. He presented Calon Talks Books on the local Wrexham community radio station for 14 years and then moved to presenting and producing the Bookylicious podcast where he shares his passion for books, writing and reading. Paul’s favourite part of the Wrexham Carnival of Words is interviewing a really diverse range of authors in front of a live audience.
Shan Cooper
Shân was the Children’s Librarian for over 18 years and is now the Libraries Lead for Wrexham Council. Shân is passionate in extending the reach of public libraries and encouraging reading for pleasure to all. She says: “one of the perks of being on the committee of Wrexham Carnival of Words is seeing the audience meet an author they’ve already read or a new author they have yet to discover; long may it continue!”.