A LITERARY flavour fills Helmsley Arts Centre this weekend, with local writers performing their work on Friday, to folk duo The Hut People on Saturday, and then writers of national stature bringing discussion on Sunday.

The arts centre's resident group, the Ryedale Writers, present their February Feast in the Studio Bar on Friday.

Poetry, prose, drama and song will also include extracts from the programme they created for the North York Moors Railway at Pickering and Goathland stations, which commemorated the closure of the Pickering to Whitby line in 1965 and celebrated its successful renaissance in 1973.

There are still tickets for Saturday when popular duo The Hut People ring their unique sound, both renowned musicians who have played with the likes of The Beautiful South, The Dubliners and Nina Simone, and whose accordion and mixed percussion prove a dynamic blend.

Sunday features an unlikely and highly entertaining combination of writers who, as Northern Voices, read from their work, chat about their inspiration and discuss, with each other and with the audience, what it means to be a writer in the North. So whether you love reading, love writing or are just curious about meeting a favourite writer come along to a thoroughly enjoyable evening. BAFTA-winning dramatist John Godber, known mainly for his observational comedies, was born in near Pontefract. He trained as a teacher of drama at Bretton Hall and wrote for TV series Brookside and Grange Hill, later becoming artistic director of Hull Truck Theatre Company in 1984.

In the Plays and Players Yearbook for 1993 he was calculated as the third most performed playwright in the UK behind Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn. Godber has been Creative Director of Theatre Royal Wakefield since 2011. His plays are performed across the world, Bouncers being the most popular.

Helen Cross is a novelist and dramatist, raised in East Yorkshire and educated at Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of East Anglia. Her first two novels are set in Yorkshire: My Summer of Love, which was published in 2001, won the Betty Trask Award in 2002 and was made into an acclaimed film starring Emily Blunt and Nathalie Press. The Secrets She Keeps was published in 2005.

Her latest novel, Spilt Milk, Black Coffee, was published in 2009. Helen also writes radio drama and short stories for BBC Radio 4.

Peter Sansom is a poet. His publications include On the Pennine Way and Everything You've Heard is True, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. His poem commissions include for The Guardian, The Observer, Radio Three, The Big Breakfast, a billboard in the centre of Lancaster and The Swedish Club (a Marine Insurers in Gothenburg). His new collection, Careful What You Wish For, was published by Carcanet in Spring 2015. Over the last 25 years, Peter has led writing workshops in hundreds of schools and workplaces, been Writer in Residence for Marks & Spencer and The Prudential. He is a director of The Poetry Business in Huddersfield, and co-editor of The North Magazine and Smith/Doorstop Books.

Tickets for all these events are available from the Helmsley Arts Centre box office or online at helmsleyarts.co.uk