Louder Than Words

By naming Bob Dylan as 2016’s prize-winning laureate, the Nobel judges have provoked discussion around the legitimacy of music lyrics as literature. But one Manchester festival has long been championing the artistic virtues of the music industry’s wordsmiths.

An affiliate of the long-running alternative music website of a similar name, Louder Than War, Louder Than Words was born as an annual festival in 2013. Its raison d’être is to showcase talented writers working in the music industry, from journalists to published authors, bloggers to poets.

Its programmed combinations of live performances, Q&As and panel discussions cover topics across a broad spectrum of music writing. There are also workshops on how to DJ rubbing shoulders with stalls selling one-off literary keepsakes made by local creatives.

The festival’s concept was imagined and brought to life by the festival’s director Dr Jill Adam, who since 2013 has been working on the events with co-curators John Robb, the punk rocker and compere who is one of the motivators behind sibling publication Louder Than Words, and Simon A Morrison, a journalist and lecturer whose CV spans Loaded, DJ Mag and The Guardian.

Louder Than Words takes place each November, with the next edition booked in for 10-12 November 2017.