Literary festivals are held annually in many corners of the globe and attract large numbers of readers, writers, playwrights (剧作家) and publishers.

Miami Book Fair

For eight days each year in November, the campus of Miami Dade College hosts over 500 outstanding authors during the Miami Book Fair. The fair offers young writers a unique opportunity to attend creative writing courses and workshops. Readers can listen to famous international authors talk about their latest books. Most of the events are offered free of charge to encourage a love of literature across all income groups.

Cheltenham Literature Festival

The festival runs for 10 days every autumn in Cheltenham. It’s the world’s first literature festival, leading the way in celebrating the writ- ten and spoken word. The fair offers something to everyone-you can attend reading activities and debates, and bring your children to see their favorite storybook characters brought to life.

Paraty International Literary Festival

It’s held each year in the city of Paraty, Brazil. Visitors can meet many local and international authors, poets and playwrights, and attend literature workshops. As part of the festival, Flipinha is mainly for children where young readers can meet writers and relax with a book in a special space. A further arm of the festival is called FlipMais. A series of free events about live theatre, music and cinema are held throughout the city of Paraty.

Edinburgh International Book Festival

The festival lasts for over 16 days every August and usually features around 900 events where you can meet your favorite authors, and bring your children to attend magical story-telling sessions and special workshops for children with learning disabilities. In most years, the festival attracts over 1,000 authors, poets and educators.

The yearly Holi Festival celebration is known for its fascinating display of color and beautiful meaning of unity. Each year the Indian people come together to throw colors and celebrate how the color unifies them and washes away their differences. It is also truly a great attraction for a foreign visitor.

As the celebration of New Year, the exact date of Songkran varies every year depending on the lunar cycle but usually happens in April. The tradition of Songkran is to return to your families and pay respect to your elders by spraying(洒) a little water on their hands. However, Songkran has changed over the years and has become a public three-day water fight.

Started in 2004 by a few famous DJs, the festival attracts thousands if not millions of EDM lovers from across the globe. DJs like Tiesto, David Guetta and Afrojack are just some of the big names who give wonderful performances. There is an open field with tents and camps all around for people to rest and sleep while enjoying the music.

Snowbombing is the biggest party on the snow held in Mayrhofen, Austria in April every year. Originally a festival about snow sports, it has grown to become the biggest music festival in the mountains over the past few years. Considered as a snowboard competition like no other, you’ll see the pros of the industry throwing some serious tricks in the park.

Upcoming Food Festivals in Summer

Stuttgarter Weindorf (Stuttgart, Germany), August 21-25

This food festival celebrates wine on the land of beer.

German wine is obviously underrated. Stuttgart’s annual Weindorf sees 28 open air restaurants serving more than 500 wines from Baden and Wurttemberg, with reds, whites, roses and sparkling versions all avaiable. Fresh pretzels and chocolates will also be available to help mop up the alcohol.

Matstreif (Oslo, Norway), July 11-12

With a wide variety of dishes available at wallet-sparing prices, this event sees more than 200 food stalls open for business in Oslo’s City Hall Square.

Bold foodies should try “rakfisk” -rotten fish. If that sounds a bit much, there’s always “svele”, a kind of pancake that originates from western Norway.

Loch Lomond Food and Drink Festival (Loch Lomond, Scotland), August 4-6

The 10th annual edition of this festival offers one of the best showcases for Scottish produce. On the menu are local specialties and venison (鹿肉) from the surrounding national park.

For those who like a competitive edge with their lunch, there’s even a “haggis” eating contest that pits eight hungry visitors against each other to see who can eat a pound of the local food

Cheese 2023 (Bra, Italy), August 27-September 2

The name is a bit of a giveaway here. This bi-annual event sees Italy’s best cheese makers gather on the small town of Bra.

Its free to visit, although plenty of euros (欧元) are needed to pay for samples and tryout some of the courses on offer. Whatever they are hunting for, cheese lovers will be well taken care of. They just need to make sure there’s time for post-cheese snooze before the next round of cheese tasting.