{"id":60701,"date":"2026-04-29T13:27:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/?p=60701"},"modified":"2026-04-29T13:27:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:27:50","slug":"sheffields-indie-book-festival-shines-a-light-on-small-businesses-and-the-importance-of-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/29\/sheffields-indie-book-festival-shines-a-light-on-small-businesses-and-the-importance-of-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheffield\u2019s Indie Book Festival shines a light on small businesses and the importance of community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>SIBFest &#8211; Sheffield\u2019s Indie Book Festival &#8211; celebrated the independent arts and culture scene across Sheffield last weekend.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two-day event was organised by four Sheffield bookshops, La Biblioteka, Hillsborough Bookshop, Juno Books, and Novel. Events took place in the bookshops, and in two of Kelham Island\u2019s venues, The Mowbray and The Victoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dave Hall, Manager of Hillsborough Bookshop and Event Organiser, said: \u201cAs bookshops, we feel like we\u2019re at the forefront of independent retail, obviously we\u2019re competing against Amazon, but we focus on that personal touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe had no idea how it would go. We\u2019re just pleased so many people have turned up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Saturday 25th April, each individual bookshop put on their own events, such as a Grown-Ups Storytime at Juno Books and on Sunday 26th, author talks, workshops, and signings were held in the Kelham Island venues.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The event featured author talks from 11 fiction and non-fiction authors such as Juno Dawson (<em>Survival Show, Her Majesty\u2019s Royal Coven<\/em>) and Kavitha Rao (<em>Synopsis of Lady Doctors: The Untold Stories of India\u2019s First Women in Medicine<\/em>). Sheffield-based children\u2019s author, Bethan Woollvin also hosted a children\u2019s drawing workshop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Sunday 26th April, The Mowbray hosted a book and makers market as part of the festival.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"568\" src=\"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5993-1-1024x568.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-60713\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.8028477546549835;width:645px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5993-1-1024x568.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5993-1-980x544.jpg 980w, https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5993-1-480x266.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1024px, 100vw\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Book and Maker&#8217;s Market at The Mowbray<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It featured a display of novels from Juno Books, a feminist and queer bookshop, as well as a host of other independent organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bloom Sheffield &#8211; a non-profit community flower garden for women and non-binary people &#8211; had a stall at the market, selling flowers that the group had grown together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kendall Turner, Company Director of Bloom Sheffield, said: \u201cI feel like people who like books, often like flowers and plants and gardening stuff so it\u2019s just really nice to be a part of something where so many people are involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cWe\u2019ve worked with lots of bookshops before and it felt like there was a very big community focus here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SIBFest &#8211; Sheffield\u2019s Indie Book Festival &#8211; celebrated the independent arts and culture scene across Sheffield last weekend.&nbsp; The two-day event was organised by four Sheffield bookshops, La Biblioteka, Hillsborough Bookshop, Juno Books, and Novel. Events took place in the bookshops, and in two of Kelham Island\u2019s venues, The Mowbray and The Victoria. Dave Hall, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":260,"featured_media":60718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60738,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60701\/revisions\/60738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}