Launching with leading sportswriters Jonathan Wilson (Guardian) and Simon Kuper (The Telegraph) at Colchester Community Stadium on Thursday 28 May – a new festival venue for 2026 and a giant nod to FIFA World Cup 2026 – this year’s Essex Book Festival is taking place in over 40 venues across Essex, from Manningtree to Harlow between 28 May and 30 June, and will be involving over 250 writers and artists from as far afield as Windhoek, Namibia, and as close to home as Great Dunmow.

Every year the festival has a different theme. This year it is Common Ground. Festival Director Ros Green explains why.

“We are living in turbulent and challenging times. Certainly, one of the most difficult times in my life. And while it’s easy to focus on what divides us, it’s much more important to focus on what binds us together as a community. We can’t think of a better way to bring everyone together than a month-long celebration of storytelling in all its forms, whether it’s on the written page or stage, on foot or under sail. Everyone has a story to tell. The key thing is to listen.”

Festival Highlights include Traitors’ ‘Faithful’ Harriet Tyce who will be appearing alongside award-winning husband-and-wife crime-writing duo Nicci French at the festival’s Criminally Good Night, to be hosted at Foakes Hall in Great Dunmow on Friday 13th June. This is the launch event for the fabulous new Great Dunmow BookFest, which will be Great Dunmow – ‘the town without a bookshop’ – into the Essex Book Town for a day! More info here: https://www.talliston.com/great-dunmow-bookfest.

The festival is delighted to be welcoming broadcaster, former MP and national treasure Gyles Brandreth to Chelmsford Cathedral on Friday 19 June. Gyles will be talking about his new book Somewhere, A Boy and A Bear, a biography of A.A. Milne, which marks the 100th birthday of another national treasure: Winnie the Pooh, who turned 100 on Christmas Eve.

The festival will also be celebrating one of Essex’s very own home-grown ‘national treasures’: Chelmsford-born children’s author Kes Gray, who is probably best known for his internationally acclaimed book series Oi Frog and Others. Kes will be appearing at the Museum of Chelmsford on 30 May as part of the festival’s very own Oi Chelmsford Family Day.

Talking of Essex’s home-grown authors, multi-award-winning author (The Essex Serpent) and festival Patron Sarah Perry will be appearing at Colchester Samaritans Community Hall on Saturday 6 June as part of the festival’s special Love & Loss Day.

Meanwhile, Essex Writers House will be based at Chalkwell Hall in Westcliff-on-Sea for the 9th year running. An inspirational month-long collaboration between Essex Book Festival and Metal Southend, the Writers House promises a fabulous array of writing events, walks, workshops and other writerly activities. This includes the opportunity to book a complimentary Hot Desk for a day overlooking the Thames, and, for the more adventurous, a day of wild writing in the revamped peacock enclosure. Who can resist that! There is also the chance to get involved in the Southbank Centre’s A Poet in Every Port project as the National Poetry Library lands at Essex Writers House to help us celebrate Essex’s unique coastal stories and more.

With another national treasure artist Maggi Hambling in conversation with novelist and art critic James Cahill at the stunning The Gibberd Garden in Harlow; Guardian journalist and BBC Radio 4 presenter Jonathan Freedland appearing at Layer Marney Tower; crime-writer Vaseem Khan introducing readers to his new series of books that has a distinctly James Bond flavour; plus multiple opportunities to explore the county on foot via our ongoing programme of Radical Walks in Essex, including a talk and a walk from Wrabness Community Shop and Bar to A House for Essex with architect and writer Charles Holland, co-designer and collaborator with Grayson Perry, the challenge is going to be fitting it all in this June.

Download the digital brochure here.

All events listings will go live and tickets go on sale at essexbookfestival.org.uk/events at 10am on Thursday 26 March.

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Wednesday 10 June 2026, 6.30pm – 8.30pm
The Commons Community Kitchen & Café at The Minories, 74 High Street, Colchester, CO1 1UE

Giles Smith, founding partner of the architecture and design collective Assemble, Winner of the 2015 Turner Prize, will be discussing the Common Treasures project and accompanying books with writer, designer, and Essex-based planner Hana Loftus, and writer and social historian, Ken Worpole.

Common Treasures in an anthology that offers a credible and compelling vision of what life in a rural future might look like.

Tickets: £10 / £8 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
Box Office: eventbrite.co.uk

This event will be chaired by Joanne Ooi, founder of @eafestivaluk & EA Sustain, events about environment, culture, literature, art & more and Chair of @creativecolchester.  Follow Joanne @culture.vlog.

Common Treasures – The Project
Ambitious thinking about the future of rural places

Common Treasures explores the challenges faced by rural communities by bringing together people with a broad range of different skills and experiences who are committed to a form of rural development that prioritises communities over profit, promotes sustainable agriculture and land stewardship, and combines lasting economic impact with ecological and social values. The project has emerged from ongoing conversations between members of the architecture collective Assemble and Common Ground, which focussed on alternative approaches to rural housing — rethinking how it is developed, designed and built — and emerged through the Raise the Roof project.

Find out more about the Common Treasures project at commontreasures.org.

Common Treasures – The Books

Published by Little Toller Books, Common Treasures emerged from ongoing conversations between members of the architecture collective Assemble and the arts organisation Common Ground, seeking fresh, connected approaches to rural housing, land and livelihoods.

Vol. 1 – Common Treasures: Land, Food and Farming (July 2025) explores food systems, regenerative agriculture and rural livelihoods. Contributions range from reviving British wool and flax production to more sustainable farming methods, community-led land ownership and strategies for strengthening local economies.
Contributors: Maria Benjamin, Philip Trevelyan, Megan Willoughby, Charlotte Hollins, Stella Peyerl, Stephen Davies, Jez Ralph, Clare Hill, Alice Clark, Colleen McCulloch, Stefan Laxness and Kaye Song

Vol. 2 – Common Treasures: Housing, Planning and Construction (September 2025) focuses on rethinking housing development, planning policy and building methods to support rural regeneration. Essays cover community land trusts, sustainable construction materials, and collaborative approaches to housing delivery.
Contributors: Rebecca Smith, Rob Hopkins & Frances Northrop, Ruth Munns, Andrew Kirby, James Shorten, Loretta Bosence, Hana Loftus, Barbara Jones, Kim Squirrell, Ken Worpole, Tim Crabtree and Summer Islam

The Common Treasures series bridges architecture, agriculture, planning and community action, offering practical blueprints for resilient rural futures. Across both volumes, farmers, architects, planners and campaigners share lived experience and tested strategies, making this a vital resource for anyone shaping life in the countryside.

Buy a copy of the book from: commmontreasures.org.

Follow Common Treasures on Instagram: @commontreasures_

Copies of Common Treasures volume 2, which Hana Loftus and Ken Worpole contributed to, will be available for sale at the event.

Common Ground

Common Ground is charity based in Dorset, which has been at the forefront of community conservation and environmental education in England for the last thirty years. We are not a think tank or political pressure group. We are a small, grassroots organisation that collaborate openly to reconnect people with nature and inspires communities to become responsible for their local environment.

We believe that enjoying where you live and celebrating the connections people have with the wildlife and landscape on their doorstep, is at the root of meaningful conservation.

Find out more about Common Ground at commonground.org.uk.

Giles Smith

Photo of Giles Smith by Hannah Thual

Giles Smith is an architect, writer and educator. He is a founding partner of the award-winning architecture practice Assemble, where his work focuses on socially-oriented projects at scales that range from furniture and events to complex buildings and masterplanning. Much of this work intersects with cultural infrastructure which builds on his experience as the chair of trustees for a South London Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation. As well as Assemble, Giles has co-founded the celebrated play project Assemble Play (now Playworks Studio) and the organisation Common Treasures which undertakes projects relating to contemporary challenges in rural communities. He has taught at numerous institutions and currently teaches at the University of Cambridge.

Hana Loftus

Photo of Hana Loftus by Polly Alderton

Hana Loftus is a planner, designer and writer based in Essex. She co-directs HAT Projects, an architecture and planning practice based in Colchester, and as a writer has been published in Apollo, Icon and widely in the architecture and planning press. Her first full-length book, Sixteen Acres, will be published by Profile Books in 2027 and an early version was shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize in 2025.

Hana contributed an essay to Volume 2 of Common Treasures.

Ken Worpole

Writer and social historian Ken Worpole is ‘a literary original, a social and architectural historian whose books combine ‘the Orwellian ideal of common decency with understated erudition,’ according to The NewStatesman. Ken has pursued a lifelong interest in the social history of London’s East End and its relationship to the Thames Estuary and coastal East Anglia. His two most recent books are No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen: Back to the land in wartime Britain (2022), and Brightening from the East: Essays on landscape & memory (2025), the latter being chosen by Geoff Dyer as one of the New Statesman’s ‘Books of the Year’ 2025.

Ken is a contributor to Common Treasures.

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