The Story
OrganizerValley of Words began in 2017 from a specific conviction that Dehradun, a city surrounded by forests, rivers, and the first ridges of the Himalayas, with a history of writers from Ruskin Bond to Jim Corbett, deserved a literary festival that reflected its own character. The Doon Valley is one of India's most storied landscapes, and its schools, academies, and survey institutions have given it a distinct intellectual heritage that no other Indian city of its size quite replicates. Sanjeev Chopra, who had spent decades in the Indian Administrative Service and had a deep personal engagement with literature and ideas, brought together the Valley of Words Foundation Trust to create a festival that would be free, open, and volunteer-powered from the outset.
The festival's non-profit, volunteer-driven structure has been a defining commitment rather than simply a resource constraint. VoW has articulated its core values explicitly: open access means no paid registration, no VIP enclosures, no hierarchy of access. Volunteers organise logistics, host speakers, and run the sessions. This gives the festival an energy and informality that larger, more commercially organised events sometimes lack.
By its 9th edition in 2025, VoW had established a broad literary and arts scope that went beyond books to include visual arts, craft, music, and cinema. The annual VoW Book Awards have given the festival an additional institutional identity in India's literary calendar. The 10th edition in November 2026, announced as DASHAM, marks a decade of the festival in a valley that has made it its own.
VoW matters as a model for what a literary festival can be when it is entirely free, entirely volunteer-run, and entirely rooted in the specific cultural identity of its location. Dehradun is one of India's most literary cities by history but had no flagship literary festival before VoW. The festival has also used its Himalayan context productively, bringing in ecological, Himalayan, and environmental themes that connect literature to the wider cultural and natural significance of the region.
VoW is proof that a free, volunteer-driven literary festival can sustain itself across nine editions in a mid-sized Indian city without corporate or government funding as its primary engine. Its open-access commitment is a principled counter-model to premium literary events.
Founded Dehradun's flagship literary festival. Established a free, volunteer-run model that has sustained for nine years. Created the VoW Book Awards. Connected Uttarakhand's literary and natural heritage to a national literary audience.
