A bookshop which had been forced to close after several instances of antisocial behaviour returned on Sunday for their first event in months.

Novel, formerly located in Crookes, Sheffield, brought a curated selection of books to their stall at the first edition of the Sheffield Independent Book Festival (SIBFest), which was hosted across several venues in Kelham.

Kate Nixon opened Novel in 2023 after years of running pop-up events, and built it into a strong community by hosting book clubs and offering it as a “third space” for people.

Since then, Ms Nixon has had to deal with several individuals who made threats to staff and caused major problems, eventually leading to police getting involved.

In the face of this, Ms Nixon took the difficult decision to shut the shop indefinitely in January this year.

She said: “I just thought I can’t spend any more time risking the safety of me and my staff”.

Since then Novel has operated online, with the community that Ms Nixon built continuing to support her vision.

She said: “It’s really lovely that people want to continue to support us. I think there’s something really unglamourous about lugging parcels up to the post office, but I’m not begrudging doing it!”

SIBFest was Novel’s first in-person event since their shop closure, and large crowds gathered to support Ms Nixon and the other independent vendors.

“It’s nice to be doing it in-person after a strange few months online,” Ms Nixon said: “The joy of shopping independently is actually getting to chat with the bookseller and to see and feel the products.

“A couple of bad actors can really ruin what is quite a nice community space for a lot of people. Although it’s been a really wild year-and-a-half I’m not going to let these three people totally crush what we’ve created.”

SIBFest was organised by a collection of independent book shops led by Alex Maxwell, owner of La Biblioteka in Leah’s Yard.

He said: “It’s about bringing people together around books, around stories, around words.”

Mr Maxwell hopes the festival can champion Sheffield’s literary scene, which he believes has always “played second fiddle” to the music and arts scenes in the city.

He said: “I think there has always been room in Sheffield to grow. We’ve had a big publisher move up to open an office in Sheffield, we’ve got literary agents, we’ve got translators.

“I think it’s really great for the scene because then it becomes a whole ecosystem which can support that growth.”

Mr Maxwell was encouraged by the support for the event and hopes to run it again next year.

Ms Nixon added: “On paper we are all each other’s competition, so it might be a bit nonsensical for us to band together like this. I’d like to think that this is a great example of why it’s important.”

Ms Nixon hopes to open a new in-person venue in Sheffield “by summer at the latest”.