Dorchester Literary Festival 2025
The line up for the 11th festival is complete and some incredible speakers are heading to Dorchester this year between the 18th and 25th of October.
Whether you’re interested in fiction, crime, science, history, politics, the natural world, health, music, walking, biography or cosy crime, there will be plenty to tempt you to join this October.
The 2025 Dorchester Literary Festival line-up includes:
- Tim Spector – Ferment – The life changing power of microbes
- Quentin Letts – Nunc
- Dr Julie Smith – Open When
- Max Hastings – Sword
- Gordon Corera – The Spy in the Archive
- Daisy Goodwin – Diva
- Mark Urban – Tank
- Barnaby Rogerson – The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East
- Geoffrey Guy – Quantum Biology
- Meg Clothier – The Shipping Forecast
- Natasha Solomons – Cleopatra
- Gyles Brandreth – Somewhere a Boy and a Bear – A Biography of A A Milne and Winnie-the- Pooh
- Jonathan Sumption – The Challenges of Democracy
- Jeremy Vine – Murder on Line One
- Terri Apter – Grandparenting: On Love and Relationships Across Generations
- Simon Bradley – Bradley’s Railway Guide
- Minette Walters – The Players
- Peter Ross – Upon a White Horse
- Damien Lewis – SAS: The Great Train Raid
- Monica Macias – Black Girl from Pyongyang
- Sonia Purnell – Kingmaker: Pamela Churchill Harriman’s astonishing life of seduction, intrigue and power
- Adam Nicolson – Bird School
- Ray Mears – Outdoor Tracking Handbook
- David Walsh and Pippa York – The Escape: The Tour, The Cyclist and Me
- Christopher Somerville – Britain’s Best Walks
- Helen Carr – Sceptred Isle – A New History of the Fourteenth Century
- Chris Chibnall – Death at the White Hart
- Sir Tony Robinson – The House of Wolf
- Sir Graham Brady – Kingmaker – Secrets, Lies and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers
- Dr Lucy Pollock – The Golden Rule – Lessons in Living
- Anne Sebba – The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz
- Rev Richard Coles – A Death on Location
- Sarah Vine – How Not To Be a Political Wife
- John Agard and Philip Nanton – Caribbean Sensations
- Christopher Summerfield – These Strange New Minds
- Martin Clunes – Meetings With Remarkable Animals
The Dorchester Literary Festival also holds featured events alongside author talks. This year, on the programme is…
- The PBFA Dorchester Book Fair
- The DLF Local Writers’ Forum – hosted by Don Nordberg
- Have They Come For Me? A guided walk tracing Law and Literature in Dorchester with Mark Damon Chutter
- Poetry Slam with Angie Porter
- The Oldie Event: When Harry met Andrew – Harry Mount in conversation with A N Wilson
For the full DLF programme, details of each talk, tickets, and more, head to the Dorchester Literary Festival website linked below.
Each year the DLF promote a local charity and help them to raise funds. At every event we promote the charity and hold collections. Among those charities supported by the Festival are Macmillan Cancer Support Dorset, the Alcohol Education Trust, People First Dorset, Dorset Community Foundation, Julia’s House and Dorset School Readers. This year and in the future the chosen charity will be Weldmar Hospicecare, a Dorset Charity providing end of life care for adults with a life limiting illness.