Well culture hounds, whatever is in your diary for October cancel now, the Birmingham Lit Festival hits the city with a simply astonishing array of events lined up featuring 80 or so writers, poets, historians, orators and performers.

Henry Normal will be performing his first poetry in over 20 years ‘Staring Directly at the Eclipse’. Normal’s prose delights and unsettles in equal measure and is as uniquely English as beans on toast! (Fri 7 Oct 8pm at Studio Theatre, Library of Birmingham).

Novelist Mike Carey discusses how Hollywood stars Glenn Close and Gemma Arterton have brought his zombie thriller ‘The Girl with All the Gifts’ to life, including shooting scenes in Birmingham. (Sun 9 Oct 10am at Studio Theatre, Library of Birmingham).

There is a special recording of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Word of Mouth’ with Michael Rosen discussing local linguistic curiosities. (Sun 16 Oct 3pm at Mailbox, BBC Birmingham).

Miranda Sawyer Journalist, broadcaster and the 1990’s ‘poster girl for youth culture’, talks candidly about life, angst and the brilliant exploration and evocation of midlife crisis in her recent novel ‘Out of Time’. (Sat Oct 15 12pm at Studio Theatre, library of Birmingham).

Contender for British comedy’s favourite smirk in the form of Sally Phillips (I’m Alan Partridge, Smack The Pony, Miranda, Bridget Jones) comes to talk about her hit Radio 4 show Clare in the Community with writer Harry Venning in When Harry Met Sally (Sat 15 Oct 12pm at Studio Theatre, Library of Birmingham).

Our favourite wildcard event has to be German author Frank Witzel discussing his novel ‘The Invention of the Red Army Faction by a Manic Depressive Teenager in the Summer of 1969’. Unmissable! (Sat 8 Oct 1.30pm at Studio Theatre, Library of Birmingham).

See our separate preview of the extraordinary poet Hollie Mc Nish’s performance on Sun 9 Oct at 7pm, here.

The festival runs from Sun 2 Oct  to Sun 16 Oct across various venues and prices. Full line up and ticket info is available here