Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival announces Ware as chair

Novelist Ruth Ware will be taking the reins as programming chair for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.

The festival runs from 18th to 21st July 2024, bringing together crime and thriller writers to discuss crime fiction. As chair, Ware follows in the footsteps crime writers including Ian Rankin, Elly Griffiths and Denise Mina, as well as Lee Child, Val McDermid and Vaseem Khan.

Ware’s debut thriller In a Dark, Dark Wood (Vintage/Gallery Books), about a bachelorette party gone wrong, was a Richard and Judy Book Club Choice, while in June 2023, her psychological thriller The It Girl (Simon & Schuster UK) was shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.

Commenting on her appointment, Ware said: "When I first began writing, one of my most cherished dreams was a panel at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. To be invited to chair the festival is truly an honour I could never have imagined – and it’s been my privilege and delight to work alongside the phenomenal programming committee to create a programme that showcases the strength, diversity and sheer literary inventiveness of our brilliant and bloody craft."