Hand-drawn bookmarks by Mantel, O’Farrell and more to raise funds for Stratford Literary Festival

To raise funds for its outreach work Stratford Literary Festival is offering hand-drawn bookmarks by authors such as the late Dame Hilary Mantel, the festival’s patron Maggie O’Farrell, Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and Jaqueline Wilson.

Bookmarks have also been created by the likes of Graham Norton, Hugh Bonneville, Michael Morpurgo, David Dimbleby and many more. Mantel created hers just before her death in September, the organisers say. Illustrators who have contributed include Rob Biddulph, Sophy Henn and Petr Horácek.

People are able to make a donation bid via a Just Giving fundraising page and then the winners are picked at random.

Funds raised from the "Bookmark Bonanza" will go towards the festival’s outreach work, which includes author projects in schools and its bedtime story writing workshops in prisons across the country.

Festival director Annie Ashworth said: “Covid restrictions took away a lot of vital school days for children and have hit literacy levels hard and now there is the double whammy of the cost of living crisis with most schools unable to afford enrichment events and literacy support. We hope we can raise lots of money to work with schools by delivering exciting and engaging projects around books.”

The minimum donation bid for the Bookmark Bonanza is £10 and the closing date for bids is 18th November. All the bookmarks can be seen here. Stratford holds two festivals in May and November with this year’s winter weekend including Michael Ball, Craig Brown, Hugh Bonneville and Pam Ayres among others. More details can be found here.