The Coast Is Queer returns to Brighton with Juno Dawson, Damian Barr and Yael Van Der Wouden

The UK’s biggest festival of LGBTQ+ literature - The Coast Is Queer - returns to Brighton’s Attenborough Centre from 9 - 12 October.

Headline writers include Yael Van Der Wouden, Juno Dawson, Munroe Bergdorf, Ali Smith, Jackie Kay, Travis Alabanza, Damian Barr and Joelle Taylor.

Panel sessions will include publishers, writers and literary agents, and a pop-up queer Heritage Hub at the University of Sussex’s library will open up Brighton’s queer past.

Now in its seventh year, The Coast Is Queer creates a space for queer readers, writers and allies to celebrate the written word.

Highlights include It Ain’t Over Until The Bisexual Speaks, with Vaneet Mehta, Lois Shearing and Sam Mills. The session will examine among other topics the common erasure of bisexuality.

From Page To Stage - with Coral Wylie and Debbie Hannan - shows how to bring queer stories to theatrical production. Graphic Sexuality: The Novel Art of Being Queer will delve into the world of queer zines, comics and graphic novels. Re: Search: Ways of Finding Queer History looks at how researchers are bringing queer history out of the closet and into the light.

Poet Joelle Taylor will read extracts from her electrifying collection The Night Alphabet. Other topics will include queer horror stories, black history and Juno Dawson's much-loved Lovely Trans Literary Salon with Munroe Bergdorf.

Letter to My Little Trans Self will include Ebony Rose Dark, Luc Grey and Libra Levi Bridgeman reading trans people’s letters to their former selves - moving, humble, scary and joyful.

There’s an open mic night with Brighton-based AFLO the poet, and much more.