ALBW 2024 (Anne Lister Birthday Week)

Owners Description: Anne Lister Birthday Week (ALBW), held annually in Anne’s hometown of Halifax in gorgeous West Yorkshire, UK, is a celebration of the fabulous lesbian diarist (made famous by Sally Wainwright’s brilliant Gentleman Jack)—and a celebration of us!

Packed with tours, talks and events that will answer nearly every question you might have about Anne and her wife, Ann Walker, ALBW attracts an international community, with 18 countries represented in 2023!

We celebrate that community every bit as much as Anne and Ann, offering events that will have you feeling right at home, right away, in the welcoming town of Halifax. And of course we party! Our annual Birthday Bash happily welcomes everyone (including those who love to dress up in Lister-period dress!) as well as gatherings both listed and informal. ALBW attendees rave about how at home they feel, and how transformative an experience ALBW can be.

And oh, the places you will see, including Shibden Hall, Anne’s ancestral home; the West Yorkshire Archives, displaying many of Anne’s diaries (with their secret code!); the Halifax Minster, where Anne was baptized, worshipped and was buried. And don’t forget nearby York’s Holy Trinity Goodramgate church, where Anne and Ann took the sacrament together to seal their union.

But wait! There’s more! ALBW is also the home of the yearly convening of The Anne Lister Society, dedicated to fostering sustained research and scholarly conversation about Anne Lister, in order to establish her place in the historical and literary record and to interpret the rich legacies of her life and writing for the future. This year’s ALS conference will feature the presentation of twenty papers dealing with a myriad of fascinating topics.

Additionally, this year ALBW joins forces with Calderdale’s Anne Lister Birthday Festival (ALBF) to increase the fun! ALBF has put together a huge selection of offerings for this year’s festival, offering even more insight and even more fun!

Interested? Find out more on January 6, 2024, when we reveal the full slate of this year’s events! Details on that launch, presented as an ALBW Live, can be found at https://www.facebook.com/ALBW2021

If you miss the livecast, you can find it at our YouTube channel (posted shortly after the livecast) at https://www.youtube.com/@AnneListerBirthdayWeek  where you’ll also find a variety of interviews with Gentleman Jack folk (yes, Suranne and Sally!) as well as other Lister-packed tales and talks.

The full event guide for ALBW2024 will be available on our website https://annelisterbirthdayweek.com/   on January 6, 2024. (If you’re curious now, last year’s Event Guide can be downloaded until the new one is posted—it will give you a great overview of what you’re in store for!) https://annelisterbirthdayweek.com/