‘Start from the Heart’: An evening with Sarah Crossan by Laura Walsha

Laura Walsha, Sarah Crossan, and Judith Heneghan

A long-awaited and much-anticipated evening with award winning novelist and poet, Sarah Crossan, took place on Tuesday 13th March at The University of Winchester.  Crossan opened the evening by saying that her journey to publication “happened quite quickly.” However, after saying these words Crossan paused, thought for a moment, then laughed and said “No it didn’t, that’s a lie!”

Will Eaves Talks About Writing by Georgina Lippiett

Will Eaves (right) signing a book for Judith Heneghan (left)

Will Eaves joined us for the final evening of this year’s Winchester Reading Series. Will is a novelist, poet and teacher. He was Arts Editor of the Times Literary Supplement for many years before moving to Warwick where he is Associate Professor in the Writing Programme. His novel-in-voices The Absent Therapist was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2014. The Inevitable Gift Shop, a collection of poetry and prose, was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for Poetry in 2016 and specially commended by the Poetry Book Society. The opening section of Murmur was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2017.

John Haynes to the Rescue by S.J. Munday

“ … like Mowgli whose own hairless coat of skin he thought was just another shape of wolf, who learned to turn his human throat to languages that neither beast nor child can really learn …”

From ‘Ashes’ – by John Haynes

On Tuesday 6th March the great John Haynes came to our rescue on what was nearly an evening of literary mourning. At very short notice he agreed to stand in for the highly anticipated Emily Berry who was unable to join us. John has been a poet of high standing for many years and has been the recipient of the Costa Award (Letters to Patience 2006), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize (You 2010) and runner up in the Arvon International Poetry Competition (‘Ashes’ 1992). He has published collections with Seren Books and The London Magazine, and has several non-fiction titles to his name. John spent many years as a teacher and poet in Nigeria, whose culture and language is behind much of his life’s work.