Hello there! Welcome to our Festival. We'll be in the lobby to show you the way. A chance to browse the bookshop before you grab your seats

An editor of 20 years, Wendy Tse Shakespeare's story is not typical in the ESEA community. She headlines on a year Story Feast features its first panel exploring the ESEA voice in publishing and the first Little Story Feast, a family day with ESEA children's authors in partnership with the British Library.

Heritage is deeply intertwined with identity, and often shapes us as creatives - so what happens when you belong to more than one community, culture or country? Join the discussion as this panel explores the opportunities and challenges of finding your voice and narrative as a mixed race storyteller. (Photos left to right) Chaired by Lucy Tandon Copp (A Love as Full as the Moon), with Emma Shevah (My Name is Jodie Jones), Camille Whitcher (Luna and the Moon Rabbit), Emma Nanami Strenner (My Other Heart), Nicole Ocran (The Half of It), and Suyin Du Bois (Eating Air).

ESEA stories are filled with mouthwatering delicacies from dumplings to dalgona, summer rolls to moon cakes. How does what we eat inspire the way we write? And how do the general public view ESEA eats? Chaired by Eva Wong Nava (Dancing Dumplings for My One and Only), with Tuyền Đỗ (Summer Rolls),  Sojung Kim McCarthy (Binna's Dalgona), Nghiem Ta (Art Director, Walker Books) and Daisy J. Hung (I Am Not a Tourist)

How about a little break for some sustenance, hobnobbing and book love?

Join us for a fun and creative session of comics round robin! This is a hands-on session where we’ll be making 4-panel comics with a twist. Come watch our illustrators in a quickfire round of comics drawing, and then have a go yourself! Paper and pens will be provided. Illustrators involved in the session will be Natelle Quek (The Paper Piano), Camille Whitcher (Luna and the Moon Rabbit), Candy Gourlay (Little Rhino Lost) and Sojung Kim McCarthy (Binna's Dalgona).

As part of our focus on Vietnam, accomplished actress and writer Tuyền Đỗ shares her creative journey and immigrant story, and gives a very personal response to the 50th anniversary of the end of the American war in Vietnam.

Family history is a many splendoured thing; discover some fascinating personal stories in a panel chaired by Candy Gourlay (Wild Song), featuring Filipino memoirist Carla Montemayor, whose ancestor was tasked to memorise family epics in the oral tradition, Vietnamese film maker Chi Thai whose picture book, The Endless Sea is based on her own refugee journey, Amelie Skoda (Bethnal Green) whose novel was inspired by her Malaysian mother’s experiences as an NHS nurse, and Saigon-born writer Loan Tran, whose father reported on the fall of Saigon for the BBC.

Explore the contributions of East and Southeast Asians working in UK publishing. A panel of publishing professionals spanning editorial, sales, and rights will discuss challenges, celebrate successes, and share insights on fostering diversity and inclusion at all levels of the industry. Chaired by Eric Huang (Guardians of the New Moon and Publishing MA lecturer), with Daphne Tonge (founder of Illumicrate), So-Shan Au (product manager at Hodder Education), and Laura Xu (senior foreign rights manager at Quarto).

The ancient legends and sci-fi futures of ESEA traditions are finally breaking through to mainstream audiences around the world. Join a panel discussion curated by Imaginarium, a literary festival that celebrates ESEA speculative fiction, to examine speculative stories with ESEA settings, protagonists, and themes and how they’ve captured a global audience. Chaired by Eric Huang (Guardians of the New Moon and Publishing MA lecturer) with Xueting C. Ni (Chinese Myths, and curator of Synopticon) and Yen Ooi (Ab Terra books, and co-organiser of Imaginarium).

We hate to see you go, but it's farewell for now and see you next year. Thank you for supporting this passion project, stay in touch, let's do something together!