TOP-DRAWER authors will mix with local writers at this year's Essex Poetry Festival.

Among the speakers at this year's festival, which will take place at venues across the county, will be the T. S. Eliot prize-winning poet and translator George Szirtes, musician Bryan Causton, and Katrina Naomi, who is the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s first writer-in-residence.

There is a strong turnout of Essex writers this year too, and 23 of the 35 featured poets either live or were born in Essex.

The first event takes place at the Greyhound Pub, in Wivenohoe, on Thursday, September 23, and the festival continues until October 9.

Leaflets for the festival are available at libraries or more information can be found at essex-poetry-festival.co.uk.