It starts on Thursday, March 13, with a poetry grand slam at Lawnswood School led by performance poet Michelle Scally-Clarke, formerly of Headingley and now of Chapeltown.

And it ends on Sunday, March 16, with a further poetry event at Dare Cafe, featuring the best local poets, including James Nash.
Sandwiched in between are events about abolitionists, the Bronte family, and Headingley-born author Arthur Ransome.

Ransome, best known for Swallows and Amazons is just one of the great writers to have emerged from the area. J R R Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings, lived there when he worked at the university.
Alan Bennett lived over a butcher's shop opposite the Three Horseshoes and TV writer Kay Mellor lives at Weetwood.

A small committee has spent nearly a year planning the first festival. Freelance journalist and publisher Richard Wilcocks was the driving force but he was supported by Rachel Harkess, Vivian Lister and June Diamond.

Mr Wilcocks was inspired to launch the festival after seeing a display at St Chad's church about local writers.

He said: "Places like Ilkley and Morley have literature festivals and Chapel Allerton has an arts festival. So why not Headingley?
"There is a multitude of not-yet-famous writers who live in the area – and a larger multitude of enthusiastic and opinionated readers. Headingley LitFest is attempting to cater for them all."
Ward councillors have given some of their community money to support the event and the committee also hope to obtain grants.
Mr Wilcocks said Arthur Ransome was one of the great characters of Headingley, born in 1884 in Ash Grove.

He was in Russia at the time of the 1917 Revolution and interviewed Lenin and Trotsky.

"He always liked to meet Trotsky," said Mr Wilcocks, "because he fell in love with Trotsky's secretary and brought her back to Windermere."
The Theatre in the Dales will present a play about Ransome called Duffers, and a work about the Abyssinian Prince of Hollin Lane I Was A Stranger.

"The prince was the son of the emperor of Abyssinia," said Richard, "and he ended up in Britain as part of Victorian imperial machinations. He came to live in Far Headingley where he died from pneumonia as a teenager."

* LitFest will take place from March 12 to 16 at several venues in the area. For more details, visit: www.headingleylitfest.blog spot.com