Litfest is grateful for the support of a number of advisors and committee members, who offer their extensive expertise and time to help keep Litfest growing, evolving and ever-improving.

Literary Advisors

Delphine Grass is Senior Lecturer in French and Comparative Literature in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Lancaster University. Originally from France, she has been a long-term partner of Litfest on The Lancaster Environment Lecture and The International Fiction Lecture especially. As well as academic research, she has published poetry, literary translations and creative-critical essays. Having grown up in a bilingual family where languages often mingled playfully and creatively, she has a passion for translated literatures, languages and transcultural artistic practices. She believes in the power of culture to bring communities together across institutional, social and national borders.

Zoe Lambert is a writer from Manchester. She lectures in Creative Writing at Lancaster University, teaching undergrad and postgrad modules in the short story. Her linked short story collection, The War Tour (Comma Press, 2012), was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. She has published short stories in a variety of publications, such as Comma Press’ Resist: Stories of Resistance. Recent stories have explored chronic illness, disability, and care, including a sequence of vignettes in Short Fiction in Theory and Practice. She is currently writing an autobiographical novel about the generational trauma of mothers and daughters in high control religious groups. Follow her on @zoeflambert.

Dr Samuel O’Donoghue is a Lecturer in Spanish Studies at Lancaster University. With Bill Swainson, he is co-founder of the Litfest International Fiction Book Club, which he and Bill have convened since 2020. He has co-convened the Lancaster International Fiction Lecture since it began in 2021 and has chaired lectures by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Geetanjali Shree, and Georgi Gospodinov. In his research and teaching at Lancaster University, Dr O’Donoghue specialises in contemporary peninsular Spanish literature both during and after the Franco dictatorship and works in the fields of trauma and memory studies and the medical humanities. His wider research interests span French and Spanish literary studies, comparative literature, cultural history, and aesthetics.

Committees

Programme Committee

Julie Bell
Bill Swainson
Emma Crighton
Daniel Findell
Delphine Grass
Jake Hope
Zoe Lambert
Oliver K. Langmead
Will Oliver
Catniss Thomas
Katherine Woodfine

Finance and Funding Committee

Julie Bell
Emma Crighton
Tony Durcan
Daria Leriu
Bill Swainson