Bradford will host its first literature festival in the summer.

The official Millennium poet Simon Armitage and Liverpool-based Brian Patten are among the writers who will be appearing at the two-week event.

Bradford Central Library, Waterstone's bookshop and the National Museum of Photography Film and Television have joined forces for the festival, which will run from July 2 to 16.

One of the highlights of the festival - which will be part of the bigger Bradford Festival - will be a reading group conference to be held on July 10 at the Alhambra Studio.

Tom Palmer, one of the event's organisers, said the conference was being supported by booksellers and publishers and would be the first of its kind to be held in this country.

"We want it to be a coming together of ideas and energies that will push the idea of reading groups into the new Millennium," he said.

Simon Armitage, the Huddersfield-based poet who has been commissioned to write the official Millennium poem, will give a reading at Waterstone's on July 7 and Brian Patten will give a talk on the Beat Poets at the library on July 9.

Among other events, the festival will also feature an open mike session at the library hosted by Bradford poet Joolz on July 2 and a Poetry Confessional event at the Bradford Festival Mela in Peel Park on July 3 in which writers will have a chance to have one-to-one sessions with a poet in residence.

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