Trainspotting creator Irvine Welsh joins big name authors and local talent for Liverpool festival

Liverpool’s Writing on the Wall festival is celebrating its 25^th birthday with a fantastic line-up including the creators of Trainspotting and The Thick of It.

Irvine Welsh and Armando Iannucci feature in a programme of events throughout May which also brings together some of the city’s best-loved writers.

Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell Boyce will be the special guest at a free WoWFEST birthday party at Sefton Park Palm House, and poet Levi Tafari launches his new book Being Human with a special performance and signing.

The month-long festival takes place over various venues and, says co-director Mike Morris, it’s an opportunity for people to see big name authors alongside incredible homegrown talent.

He said:

“There are two sides to the festival, one is bringing authors into the region that people might not otherwise get to see and putting on events that are accessible in terms of venues and ticket prices,”

“The other is highlighting issues, and we take a lot of risks in the themes we address.

“There aren’t many places where people can come together these days to have open discussions and listen to opinions, debate and ask questions. 

“That’s our origins – equality and a belief that creativity can engage people in a way that lots of other activities aren’t able to do.

“The festival is a chance to bring people together to discuss issues as well as just enjoying great work and great authors, and that’s really important.”

This year’s anniversary programme combines what WoW describes as old friends and first-time guests.

Some, like Irvine Welsh and Levi Tafari, have been long-time supporters, involved from the early days when the concept of a festival was born out of the dockers dispute.

Mike explains:

“A writing group was set up which developed into writing the film Dockers, with Jimmy McGovern and Irvine Welsh involved.

“From that came the idea to put a festival on around social justice, equality, creativity and diversity. We held the first one, lasting about five days, in 2000 then we became a charity in 2003 and two years later won Arts Council funding so we were able to take on our co-director Madeline Heneghan.

“We began building on what we had, delivering the annual festival and a range of projects with different communities, and in 2008 we expanded the festival to a month to celebrate Capital of Culture.”

WoWFEST has spanned a full month ever since, while the team has continued to grow other projects including Black History Month festivals and a novel writing competition called Pulp Idol in addition to publishing work by local authors.

He said:

“We publish histories, memoirs, novels – and we estimate we’ve published about 500 people since we started,”

“Writing on the Wall does a huge amount of work in supporting writers to get published because that can be extremely difficult for working class writers, and for writers representing diverse communities.”

Mike says while famous names help to raise WoWFEST’s profile, showcasing and developing local writers is a key part of what they do.

“I think that’s why we’re still here, because we’ve connected well with the city and the city connects well with us.

“We always ensure that we feature local people prominently in our festival, so they get a platform and audiences get to see them. The amount of local talent we have here is astonishing, particularly around writing, spoken word and performance.”

Irivine Welsh, who kicks off WoWFEST 2025 on May 2 at Rough Trade, has been quoted as saying there isn’t another writing festival in England as good as Writing on the Wall.

He said:

“He has been involved since 2002/3, I first met him when he was part of the group that created the film Dockers and from the start he’s been incredibly supportive. As I contacted him to tell him it was our 25^th anniversary, he just said ‘I’ll be there.’

“We’re honoured by the response we get from artists like Irvine, Levi, Michael Rosen, Jackie Kay, Frank Cottrell Boyce and Kit de Waal because people like that are in huge demand.

“They often comment on how different our audiences are compared to other festivals they go to, they recognise we’re grassroots, and they love taking part in the audience Q&As and meeting people here.

“It’s also great for Liverpool in terms of the visitor economy and profile, that we’re able to achieve so much for a small organisation compared to the big hitters. We really do try to punch above our weight.”

For the full WoWFEST line-up go to their website.

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