The Book Festival Patrons

​Henry is a writer, poet, TV & Film producer, founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Literature festival) and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival.

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In June 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to Television. He co-wrote and script edited the multi-award winning Mrs Merton show and also co-created and co-wrote the first series of The Royle Family. 

 

In 1990, Henry set up

Baby Cow Productions Ltd and Executive Produced all, and script edited many of the shows of it's 17 and a half year output -including the Oscar nominated film Philomena, Gavin and Stacey, Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh, and Alan Partridge.

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Since retiring in April 2016, Henry has written and performed numerous BBC Radio 4 shows combining comedy, poetry and stories about family. 

Born in St Anne's, Nottingham in 1956, Henry now lives in Fairlight with his wife and screenwriter Angela Pell (Close to Me, Snowcake) and their son Johnny.

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Henry performs poetry at Literature Festivals around the UK and has published more than a dozen poetry books. He was recently given an honourary doctorate of letters by Nottingham Trent University, another by Nottingham University and has a beer and a bus named after him in Nottingham!

Patrice Lawrence is a highly acclaimed writer for adults and children. She was appointed the UK's Children's Laureate in June 2026, a role which makes her the leading national representative of children's literature until 2028. Her books for young adults have won many prizes including the Bookseller YA Prize, the Waterstones Prize for Older Children's Fiction, the Crimefest YA Prize twice, the Woman and Home Teen Drama Award and the inaugural Jhalak Prize for Children and Young People. 

 

Her first story to be published was Duck, Duck, Goose, which was included in The Decibel Penguin Prize Anthology in 2006. It was while attending an Arvon Foundation crime writing course that Patrice had the idea for her award winning debut young adults' novel, Orangeboy.

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It received a five-star rating from MuggleNet, with the reviewer stating: "I absolutely adored this moving story. It is full of tears and laughter, unfettered fears and furious joy, family and friendship." Patrice said of the novel that "though her primary aim had been to promote hope in her story of a teenager caught in gang violence, she wanted to reflect the real situation faced by many black teenagers in Britain".

 

Before becoming a full time writer, Patrice worked for more than 20 years in organisations promoting social justice. 

Patrice now lives in Hastings has judged numerous book prizes, mentors emerging writers and was awarded an MBE for services to literature in June 2021.

Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning author, poet and broadcaster of mixed Jamaican-Irish heritage. Her work has been widely anthologised and broadcast on BBC Radio, TV and film and she consistently features at international book and poetry festivals. Her 2021 debut novel, Mrs Death Misses Death was published by Canongate Books, winning the Indie Book Award for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize and shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the British Book Awards. A highly anticipated second novel set in the Mrs Death universe titled The Life Of Life is in production and will be published by Canongate in March 2027. 

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Other recent books include a literary childhood memoir, Springfield Road and two poetry collections Pessimism is for Lightweights: 30 Pieces of Courage and Resistance and With Love, Grief and Fury, which was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards and received a Special Commendation from The Poetry Book Society. A full live performance from With Love, Grief and Fury was broadcast on BBC’s The Verb and chosen for Pick of The Week.

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Her poem Pessimism is for Lightweights is on permanent display at the People’s History Museum, Manchester. Recent performances of protest poems While Justice Waits and Dirty Old Men were Highly Commended by the Forward Poetry Prize. Notably her work has also been shortlisted for the 4thWrite Short Story Prize, the Ted Hughes Award, Jerwood Compton Foundation and the Bridport Poetry Prize. Her poetry and fiction has been added to the GSCE school syllabus and the Open University. Salena Godden is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Patron of Hastings Book Festival and an Honorary Fellow of West Dean, Sussex. 

Trix Worrell started as a theatre writer and director. At the Albany Empire in Deptford London. In the late ’70s and early '80s, he went on to create the Albany Basement Youth Theatre Company, where he taught Dance and formed The Basement youth Dance Company’, he was Co-Founder of ‘Second Wave’ a young women’s drama group and The Lewisham Academy of Music, which became The Midi Music Company. Headed by Wozzy Brewster, a former member of the Basement Youth Theatre.

 

Trix has written and directed plays in most of the leading London fringe theatres from Upstairs at the Royal Court to The Ovalhouse.

 

A graduate of the National Film and Television School, and winner of Channel 4's "Debut" writers competition, Worrell went on to create, write and direct Desmond's and Porkpie for Channel 4 and What You Looking At for London Weekend Television.

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He has written the scripts for several award ceremonies, including the MTV Europe Awards for Ali G in Frankfurt, for P Diddy in Barcelona, the MOBO Awards and the BBC2 Windrush Ceremony. Worrell directed an internet drama entitled Dog Endz, and the critically acclaimed one-woman show Little Big Woman, starring Llewella Gideon, at Leicester Square Theatre.