Video: Poet Simon Armitage at Sheffield's Off The Shelf Literary Festival

The event, organised by Sheffield Council's cultural services department, is billed as a "celebration of reading and writing" and will include appearances by well-known authors.

Mr Armitage performed his poetry at the launch event, alongside rapper Ashford Coe, who will also be involved in the festival, and writer and singer Seni Seneviratne.

The festival will run between October 9 and October 30. A spokesman said: "Off the Shelf is one of the North's most prestigious, innovative, exciting and popular literary festivals."

Off the Shelf is now in its 19th year and Sheffield Council said in recent years it had regularly attracted more than 20,000 people to its events.

Full programme details are not yet finalised but the bill already includes comedian Jenny Eclair, Tony Blair's former press secretary Alastair Campbell and historian Dr David Starkey.

Former Chesterfield MP Tony Benn will also take part alongside journalist Will Hutton, novelists Michael Morpurgo and Jonathan Coe and Red Riding and The Damned United author David Peace.

The Yorkshire Post's features editor, Sarah Freeman, is also due to be at the festival to discuss her new book, Bront in Love, about Charlotte Bront's tragic love life.

For more details about the festival log onto the website at www.offtheshelf.org.uk or contact the organisers at [email protected] or on 0114 273 4716 or 0114 273 4400.