Hexham Book Festival brings Paddy Ashdown, Janet Street-Porter and Lara the Spy-dog under one roof, as director Susie Troup tells Tamzin Lewis.

Paddy Ashdown is in town on April 30 for an event with author Julia Grint to mark the publication of his new autobiography A Fortunate Life.

His life has been full of adventure from battlefields to the Commons, and from Bosnian peace broker to the nearly-envoy for Afghanistan. Also at the Queens Hall on Wednesday is a free event with young northern novelists Ross Raisin and Richard Milward.

The festival takes over the Forum Cinema on May 1 with events running throughout the day. Radio 4 presenter Libby Purves and broadcaster Irma Kurtz talk about their new books in the morning.

Novelist and Mslexia magazine founder Debbie Taylor runs a workshop entitled How do you get your novel published? at 2pm.

A special Jane Austen evening kicks off with a talk by biographer Claire Harman about her new book Jane’s Fame which looks at the changing status of Austen in the two hundred years since her death.

The talk is followed by a screening of Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility starring Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson.

You can Write Through the Night in a moonlit poetry workshop taking place at Kielder Observatory with poet Maurice Riordan. He is holding a follow-up event on May 2 with poems from a new collection of poetry Dark Matter, inspired by space.

Children, young people and adults are all catered for over the book festival’s main weekend with gruesome storytelling, romance with Mills & Boon and appearances by authors Susie Boyt, Patrick Gale and Philip Hensher.

Journalist and broadcaster Janet Street-Porter talks at the Queen’s Hall Theatre about her new book Life’s too f*****g short, her guide to getting what you want without wasting time, effort or money.

On May 3, New Writing North celebrates its 2009 Northern Writers’ Awards at a free event. There will also be a showing of a new Bloodaxe film made by Pamela Robertson-Pearce and a journey by Three Men on the Metro with poets Andy Croft, Bill Herbert and Paul Summers.

Performance poet Benjamin Zephaniah rounds off the festival with his edgy and humorous blend of politics and personal reflection.

An exhibition of Eamonn McCabe’s photographs of writers’ rooms, which feature in The Guardian, is being held throughout May at Queen’s Hall Arts Centre.

For more information visit www.hexhambookfestival.co.uk. Call Queen’s Hall Box Office on (01434) 652477 for tickets.