During this 60-minute Q&A, Tessa Hadley will discuss the inspiration behind her rich and engaging new essay collection Alone with a Book: On Reading, Writing and Looking.
As well as being the author of eight highly praised novels and four short story collections, Tessa is a much-loved member of the CBC tutor team, leading our five-week Writing Literary Fiction with Tessa Hadley course. The event will offer invaluable insights into Tessa's writing process, including her approach to writing short stories compared with novels, creating intimate family dynamics and her relationship to reading.
Alone with a Book is a lively, astute essay collection about the pleasure of reading deeply and seeing our world reflected back to us in art. For as long as Tessa Hadley can remember, life has been made vivid by reading. The touchstones of childhood were the laminated pages of a Ladybird book, then the sail boats in Swallows and Amazons, then the rich and immersive The Secret Garden. In these precise and energising essays, Hadley turns to the books and the art that have animated her life, and asks what it means to connect with one book over another.
All ticket-holders will be invited to submit a question for Tessa ahead of time. The most interesting and frequently asked questions will be curated and put forward to Tessa by CBC's Head of Courses Jennifer Kerslake. This event will be ‘webinar style’ with Tessa and Jennifer appearing live on-screen, attendees will not appear on the screen however they will be able to post comments in a chat box.
Tessa Hadley has published eight novels – including The Past, Late in the Day, and Free Love – and four collections of short stories – including Bad Dreams and After the Funeral. She publishes short stories regularly in the New Yorker, and reviews for the Guardian and the London Review of Books; she was awarded a Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction and the Hawthornden Prize in 2016, and she is a two-time winner of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She lives in Cardiff. Photo by Sophie Davidson.
Jennifer is Head of Courses / Editor at Curtis Brown Creative. She was previously an editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, the literary imprint of the Orion Publishing Group. In her time there, she worked with authors including Costa-shortlisted Elisa Lodato, Stella Prize-winning Heather Rose, Leila Aboulela, Francesca Jakobi, Chloë Mayer, Shannon Leone Fowler and Haleh Agar. She is passionate about nurturing new voices and enjoys working closely with writers to get their work into the best possible shape to share with publishers.
Purchase your ticket for this event by clicking the ‘Enrol Now’ button.
After purchase you will be sent an email confirmation – then we will send you a link to join the Zoom event at least a week before the interview takes place. A recording of the event will be made available to ticket holders after the event.
Please note, current members of The Writing Studio (including students of our Complete Your Manuscript – One-to-One Programme) get free passes to live online events. If this applies to you please book using the Event Calendar in the Writing Studio, or email students@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk for assistance.