Gaynor has been invited to speak on ‘Inventing the Past’ and she will talk about the genre sometimes described as ‘bio-fiction’. Her two nineteenth century novels, Girl in a Blue Dress and After Such Kindness are works of the imagination, but centre on actual historical people. Girl in a Blue Dress looks at the marriage of Charles Dickens from his wife’s point of view, while After such Kindness re-imagines the relationship between the child Alice and the adult Lewis Carroll.

Date: 17th Dec 2014. Venue: Baker 508, City North Campus (Perry Barr). 1-2pm.

More info: https://icity.bcu.ac.uk/Event/The-2014-School-of-English-Lecture-Inventing-the-Past-the-Truth-behind-the-Facts

To top off a brilliant year (eg winner of the Bridport Flash Fiction prize; see below for more!) Kit has secured a deal for her first novel ‘My Name is Leon’ with Viking.

Book Trade says:  Kit de Waal’s dazzlingly painful and uplifting debut takes the reader inside the mind of a little boy who will enchant and live on in the reader’s mind long after the last page is read.

Well done, Kit. Read more here: http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/57187/nl

Elisabeth is co-editor of the collection of tales inspired by the Odyssey, and Yasmin is a featured writers in the book. See below.

A Midlands Odyssey: with Natalie Haynes

October 7 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

TSFG members Garrie and Charlie both had stories in Unthology 5. They were invited to interview each other about their respective stories, and about lobsters in literature, for the Unthank blog. Pictures forthcoming..