Hearth (online tickets available)

Pull up a chair, gather around the hearth and indulge in a day of stimulating and entertaining conversation. Our Hearth line up for this year features four writers whose works and talks will stir the imagination. The individual events are:

10.30am - 11.30am: Writing Velázquez and Visual Art with Amy Sackville

For writer Amy Sackville visual art has always been an inspiration, particularly the Spanish Golden Age. Amy’s love of this period led her to write Painter to the King, called ‘one of the finest historical novels of recent years’

12pm-1pm: Extra-Ordinary Voices: Recovering Voices Lost to History with Alice Jolly

Writing a book in an extra-ordinary first-person voice is a major risk for a writer. Her new novel Dr Asperger’s Dilemma features the voice of one of Asperger’s patients. Join Alice as she discusses the challenges of recreating the lost voices of history.

2pm-3pm: Through a Glass, Darkly: Writing and the Work of Watching with Carys Bray

Join Carys Bray as she outlines her challenge to Graham Greene’s famous assertion, made while studying a pair of grieving parents in a hospital. In this hour Carys will explore stories ranging from deeply personal – sitting beside her daughter in a neonatal unit – to Bible stories of Jesus asking the disciples to wait and watch with him, to wry, funny extracts from her own novels.

3.30pm-4.30pm: Restoration, Hybridity and Survival: Sources of Inspiration with poet Rosalind Hudis, author of Restorations.

Rosalind Hudis's poetry dips into many-faced acts of salvage, survival, and transformation - be it of memory, a culture, an painting, a person. Aided by slides and sound, Rosalind will explain some of her sources of inspiration. She'll also read from her own work and some connected works by other authors. You are invited to share your own pieces on the theme of restoration. Not to be missed!

Each event ticketed separately.