This week marks the anniversary of the passing of poet Philip Levine who died at the age of 87 on 14 February 2015. This award-winning poet published 17 collections and was appointed Poet Laureate in the US in 2011.

This week marks the birthday of Jules Verne (February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905). Verne was a French playwright, poet and novelist famous for several beloved novels.

This week marks the birthday of American novelist Gertrude Stein (3 February 1874 - 27 July 1946). Friends with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, Stein was synonymous with the Paris art scene in the early 1900s and introduced the artists to one another at one of her weekly salons.

This week we are celebrating the life of Virginia Woolf who was born on 25th January 1882. Recognised as “one of the most innovative writers of the 20th century”, Woolf is well known for her novels Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse.

This week marks the birthday of Nazim Hikmet (15 January 1902 - 3 June 1963) Hikmet had a varied writing career, working as a journalist, scriptwriter, proofreader and translator while writing poems and plays about love and war.

This week we are celebrating the birthday of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who was born in Kyoto, Japan on January 12, 1949. Before becoming a writer, he ran a jazz bar with his wife, which he ran for seven years.

This week marks the birthday of Stella Gibbons (5 January 1902 – 19 December 1989), English writer, poet and journalist. During her life, she wrote 25 novels, along with short stories and several volumes of poetry.

This week we are celebrating the Icelandic tradition of Jólabókaflóðið, which roughly translates as The Christmas Book Flood. A swell of book buying starts as the festive season approaches and ends with the gifting of books on Christmas Eve.

This week we’re celebrating the birthday of Emily Dickinson (10 December 1830 – 15 May 1886). Dickinson was an American poet whose work was little known outside her circle of family and friends until after her death.

This week we’re celebrating the birthday of C. S. Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis 29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), a British writer whose works include The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. During his life, he wrote more than thirty books.

This week marks the birthday of Frances Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849), a British-American author whose famous work includes Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Secret Garden.

Today we are celebrating the birthday of Canadian author Margaret Atwood (November 18, 1939). Atwood is one of the world’s leading novelists and writes everything from poems to essays, short stories to screenplays and of course, novels.

This week we are shining a light on National Novel Writing Month. Already in full swing for 2022, NaNoWriMo began in 1999 with a clear challenge for writers and aspiring authors: to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days!

This week, we remember, remember the 5th of November. But more specifically, we take a look at where the famous poem may originally have come from. First in Latin, In Quintum Novembris was written by a 17-year-old John Milton in Cambridge in 1626.

This week we are observing the birthday of Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963), the American poet and novelist. In her tragically short life, she wrote several volumes of poetry and short stories. The Bell Jar was her only published novel.

This week we’re celebrating the birthday of English author, Philip Pullman (born 19 October 1946). After reading English at Oxford, Pullman became a teacher before concentrating on writing, mainly children’s and young adult novels and short stories.

This week, we’re observing the birthday of Marina Lewycka, born on 12 October 1946. Lewycka is of Ukrainian origin, born in Germany during World War II in a refugee camp in Kiel, and moved to England when she was a year old.

“National Poetry Day is the annual mass celebration on the first Thursday of October that encourages everyone to make, experience and share poetry with family and friends. Each year we come together because voices, words and stories help to bridge understanding in our community.”