Presented by

Our patrons

A group of men and women on stage discussing a book

Thank you to our festival patrons!

We're delighted to have Carnegie Medal nominee Dr Ashley Hickson-Lovence, children’s authors and illustrators Kate Read and Matt Robertson and Royal Society Literature Fellow Dr Sarah Perry as Norwich Book Festival patrons.

Ashley Hickson-Lovence

A headshot image of Ashley Hickson-Lovence, a young black man

Author of the novels The 392, Your Show, Wild East and the poetry collection Why I am Not a Bus Driver. Ashley Hickson-Lovence holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia.

 Ashley has more than a decade of experience teaching Creative Writing at leading institutions including UEA, Arts University Bournemouth, the University of Suffolk and the University of Cambridge.

His accolades include nominations for the Black Excellence Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature (2023) and the Carnegie Medal for Writing (2025). His new novel, About To Fall Apart, will be published by Faber in spring 2026. Originally from London, he now lives in Norwich.

Kate Read

Kate Read, a young white woman with glasses sitting at a table holding a coffee cup
Image credit: Beth Moseley

Best-selling children's author and illustrator based in Norfolk. Her first book One Fox - A Counting Book Thriller, published by Two Hoots, Macmillan, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book prize, the Klaus Flugge Prize and was awarded an Ezra Jack Keats Honour. 

Kate’s books have been translated into lots of languages and are available across the world. She has since gone on to illustrate books in conjunction with the National Trust and has written and illustrated non-fiction as well as stories for other authors. 

 Kate also sells her illustrations as prints and greetings cards and has opened a studio and shop selling her work as well other illustrators' books, toys and artwork in Aylsham, Norfolk.

Matt Robertson

A black and white image of Matt Robertson, white man with glasses, in a stripey top in front of a brick wall. a stripey top

Matt is a Norfolk based award-winning author and illustrator of over 20 children’s books.

His first picture book, Super Stan, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Book Prize and won the Dundee Children’s book prize in 2017. In 2020 his first book in the highly successful Do You Love? series was awarded the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Award. 

Sarah Perry

Sarah Perry, a blonde haired woman, standing in a garden setting

DR Sarah Perry FRSL is the internationally bestselling author of the novels: Enlightenment, Melmoth, The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood, and the non-fiction Essex Girls.

She is a winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year Award and the British Book of the Year Award. Enlightenment was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 and her other work has been nominated for major literary prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Folio Prize and the Costa Novel Award.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.