Headline announces partnership with Off the Shelf Festival for series of 'inclusive' events

Headline is partnering with Off the Shelf Festival of Words to create four "diverse and inclusive" author and publishing events at the festival in October.

The Sheffield-based festival, organised by the University of Sheffield, will run from 7th October to 3rd November 2024. Headline will host its first event, "Black Women Writers—Dorothy Koomson and Kit de Waal in conversation with Christina Fonthes", on 12th October. Koomson and de Waal will discuss their path to publication and what it is like to be Black women writers.

Sarah Marsh and Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow headline the second in-conversation event on 19th October and discuss their experience as deaf and neurodivergent writers, respectively. The talk, "On Writing and Perspective", will be BSL interpreted. 

Headline will also host two publishing events on 26th October. A panel, titled "The Life Cycle of a Book", will feature representatives from the publisher’s editorial, production, publicity and marketing teams to explain a book’s journey from acquisition, to editing and PR. The second event will give festival attendees the opportunity to book a 15-minute informal chat with a member of the Headline team. 

Alongside the events, Headline will run targeted marketing activity at the festival to reach different communities such as  students, low-income writers and the deaf community. The publisher will also work with Hachette’s Sheffield branch to promote their events. 

Sarah Unwin, Off the Shelf, University of Sheffield, said: "We’re thrilled to partner with Headline to expand and diversify our events at Off the Shelf Festival of Words, Sheffield. We’re particularly excited to collaborate with authors like Sarah Marsh and Viktoria Lloyd Barlow, who have hidden disabilities. Together, we’re committed to reaching new audiences, fostering inclusivity, and pushing the festival in exciting directions. Working with Headline has been a pleasure, and we look forward to growing our partnership in the years to come."

Caitlin Raynor, Headline publicity director, added: "Having long admired the creativity and tenacity of the Off the Shelf team, and having worked with them for many years on individual literary events, we’re delighted to have the opportunity to partner more closely this year. It has been wonderful to prepare such a rich, collaborative and inclusive programme of events together and we’re so excited to bring our authors and staff to Sheffield next month."