Miranda Seymour--biographer, novelist and critic--discussed her new book, In Byron's Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron's Wife and Daughter, and her biography of Mary Shelley, which has just been reissued to mark the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. She spoke about the intersecting worlds--poetic and scientific-- of three brilliant women. Byron's daughter Ada Lovelace, called the prophet of the modern computer, was introduced to mathematics by her mother, Annabella Milbanke, also a mathematician. Mary Shelley, competing in a game of telling ghostly tales with the poet Byron, produced Frankenstein, a prophetic account of a scientific achievement. Miranda Seymour is the author of biographies of Robert Graves and Ottoline Morrell; a memoir In My Father's House; and Noble Endeavors, among other books.

Our panel of three discussed how women writers influence, mentor, support and encourage one another. Our panel included Jill Dawson, Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. Jill Dawson, bestselling novelist most recently of The Crime Writer, is the founder of Gold Dust, a writer-to-writer mentoring scheme. Emma Sweeney is a Gold Dust novelist and co-author with Emily Midorikawa of the recent recently published A Secret Sisterhood, about the literary friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Together they run the website Something Rhymed, which profiles friendships of well-known female authors.

Wednesday, 15th March 2017, 7 p.m. Acclaimed Turkish novelist Elif Shafak spoke about her forthcoming novel set in modern Turkey, Three Daughters of Eve, which grapples with Islam, secularism and the role of women. This novel is already a best-seller in Turkey. She is the author of nine previous novels and her work has been translated into 40 languages.

 Wednesday, 30th November, 7 pm. Novelist Deborah Levy discussed her latest novel, Hot Milk, which was shortlisted for this year's Man Booker Prize. Her 2012 novel Swimming Home won widespread critical praise and was also shortlisted for the Booker. Critically acclaimed for her intelligence and originality as a writer, Levy is the author of four other novels, a short story collection and over 20 plays. Her essay Things I Don't Want to Know was a provocative feminist response to George Orwell's Why I Write. See our Blog below for a write-up of this event!

Tuesday, 20th September, 7 pm.  Biographer Anne Sebba discussed her new book about how Parisian women survived the World War II German occupation of Paris and its aftermath. Fiction writer and editor Elena Lappin, author of the short story collection Foreign Brides, discussed her new memoir What Language Do I Dream In? about growing up in five languages as a multiple emigré before settling on English as her home language.
 

May 11, 2016. Amanda Craig, the author of six novels, discussed how she weaves such contemporary issues as inequality and social class into her novels and the experience of being a London novelist.

Her most recent novel, Hearts and Minds, following the lives of several immigrants living in London, was long-listed for the Orange Prize. A leading figure on the London literary scene, Amanda Craig has tackled contemporary topics in her novels including inequality, social class, human trafficking and other social issues in urban life.  Hearts and Minds was praised by the Telegraph as "a sympathetic, thought-provoking and deeply moving account of the strange, shifting beast that is our capital."  A.N. Wilson hailed her 1996 novel, A Vicious Circle, by saying that "the greatest novelist under the age of 50 has now stepped onto the stage." Amanda Craig is also an award-winning journalist and continues to write reviews and journalism for The Guardian and other newspapers. She is currently working on her seventh novel, set in Devon and London. "It's a novel about a marriage in deep trouble, and about the role money plays in a relationship," she writes on her blog.

She was in conversation with Catherine Davidson, author of The Priest Fainted, called by Amanda Craig "the most enchanting book about Greece since anything by Lawrence Durrell." Catherine Davidson currently teaches creative writing at Regents University in London and blogs about writing and life across two cultures at Medium.