Readers’ Day 2023
In partnership with the West Midlands Readers’ Network.
Devote a day to books as we hear from six brilliant writers in panel conversations and smaller discussion groups.
We’re delighted to welcome an exceptional line-up: Dorothy Koomson, Erin Kelly, Caroline Lea, Liam Brown, Kate Mascarenhas and Rosanna Amaka, with a brilliant catalogue of books perfect both for book club choices and as individual reads.
We’ll be hearing from these authors in conversation during two separate panel discussions; morning and afternoon. Each panel is then followed by a smaller discussion session. You’ll be asked to select your two group sessions at Registration, at the start of the Readers’ Day.
There will also be the opportunity to buybooks and have them signed.
Our Readers’ Day takes place in the Lower Lobby of Priory Rooms in central Birmingham, in fully accessible rooms.
Coffee and tea will be available as part of your ticket throughout the day. Lunch will not be provided but there are plenty of options close
by, or you are welcome to bring your own.
About the speakers:
Liam Brown’s new novel is the “heartbreakingly beautiful” Evergreens. Liam is the author of four previous novels: Real Monsters, Wild Life, Broadcast, and Skin, which was shortlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize. His work has been optioned by a major Hollywood film studio and sold into multiple languages. He lives in Birmingham.
Rosanna Amaka was born in the UK and is of African and Caribbean heritage. Her debut novel, The Book of Echoes, was shortlisted for the Authors Club First Novel Award, the RSL Christopher Bland Prize and the HWA Debut Crown Award. Rose and the Burma Sky is her second novel and was inspired by a conversation with her grandmother while they were watching a war film in which all the soldiers were white. Rosanna lives in London.
Erin Kelly is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Sick Rose, The Burning Air, Watch Her Fall and more. The Poison Tree was a Richard & Judy Summer Read and became a major ITV drama. He Said She Said was selected for the Simon Mayo Radio 2 Book Club. Her latest book The Skeleton Key is an intricately plotted thriller about two families and a lifetime of obsession.
Dorothy Koomson is an award-winning author of 18 novels, known as the ‘Queen of the Big Reveal’. Her books are regularly Sunday Times bestsellers, have sold over 2.5 million copies in the UK alone and have been translated into more than 30 languages. Dorothy featured on the 2021 Powerlist as one of the most influential Black people in Britain and was a judge for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction. 2023 marks Dorothy’s 20th anniversary as a published author. Her latest novel is My Other Husband.
Caroline Lea grew up in Jersey then studied at Warwick University, where she later became a Creative Writing tutor. Her fiction and poetry have been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. Her debut novel, The Glass Woman, a gothic thriller set in Iceland, was shortlisted for the Historical Writers Association Debut Crown Award. Her latest novel, Prize Women, is inspired by film footage showing the women who took part in the Great Stork Derby, a shocking story that remained buried for so long.
Kate Mascarenhas is a part-Irish, part-Seychellois midlander. Since 2017, Kate has been a chartered psychologist. Before that she worked as a copywriter, a dolls’ house maker, and a bookbinder. She is the author of two other novels, The Psychology of Time Travel and The Thief on the Winged Horse. Her latest, Hokey Pokey is set in 1929 Birmingham and features a grand hotel, a famous opera star and a psychoanalyst with a hidden agenda.
