Tickets go on sale today for this year’s first Literary Ipswich festival.

Having been part of Ip-art for the last seven years, events will include talks by authors DJ Taylor, Juliet Gardiner, Michael Morpurgo and Simon Mayo, a literary lunch with Anna Whitelock chaired by Ben Gummer MP and a literary walk around Ipswich, exploring the streets where great writers lived and worked.

Aspiring authors can join the writers’ cafe, where they can read their work and hear that of others and improve their skills at workshops with Peter Hobbs and Christopher Shevlin on creative writing and self publishing.

New event Bright Futures features young award-winning authors Naomi Alderman, DW Wilson and Sarah Ridgard.

There will be a lunchtime talk focused on the 60th anniversary of the 1953 East Anglian Flood where Rachel Hore and Patricia Rennoldson Smith discuss how they drew inspiration from the region’s greatest natural disaster; one in fiction the other with a factual account.

Ipswich town hall will feature two photographic exhibitions.

Flood - Photographs and Newspapers from 1953 provides background material to the lunchtime talk and Bill Brandt: Literary Britain, with East Anglian Connections is a chance to admire work by this leading photographer. Hugh Pilkington will introduce the exhibitions at a curator’s talk.

From October 1-5 the town Hall cafe becomes the Literary Ipswich Hub, where readers are invited to take part in a big book swap, share their thoughts on what they are reading and read the shortlisted entries for the short story Prize.

Sara Newman, Literary Ipswich’s artistic director says: “I am delighted with the range of authors coming and the additional activities we’ve been able to programme. We are confident the programme will catch the imagination of both new and familiar faces.”

Literary Ipswich runs from October 2-6. For details of all these events and how to book visit www.ip-lit.co.uk