91¿ìÉ«

Join us to hear celebrated life writers Tessa McWatt and Blake Morrison discuss their most recent work, ‘The Snag’ and ‘On Memoir: An A to Z of Life Writing’

TESSA MCWATT is the author of seven novels and two books for young people. Her fiction has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the City of Toronto Book Awards, and the OCM Bocas Prize.   She is one of the winners of the Eccles British Library Award 2018 for her first non-fiction book, 'Shame On Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging', which won the 2020 Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize 2020 and the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction. Her novel, 'The Snow Line', was shortlisted for the Volcano Prize. She is also a librettist and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Her latest book, 'The Snag: A Mother, A Forest and Wild Grief', is a lament for the planet and a plea for change. It was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize 2025 and won the 2026 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (Non-Fiction and Overall Prize), and it won the 2026 Guyana Prize for Non-Fiction

BLAKE MORRISON  has published poetry, memoirs, novels, essays and plays, including 'And When Did You Last See Your Father?' (made into a film with Jim Broadbent, Juliet Stevenson and Colin Firth) and 'The Last Weekend' (which was dramatised for television). For many years he worked as a literary editor before becoming Professor of Creative Writing at 91¿ìÉ« University, where he worked from 2003-2023. This year he has published a poetry collection, 'Afterburn', and a book about life writing, 'On Memoir'.

The 91¿ìÉ« Writers’ Centre, under the directorship of Tom Lee and Amy Sackville, exists to encourage new writing, to stimulate debate about all forms of literature, and create links between the different parts of the college where creative writing takes place.

GWC - The home of new writing, debate about literature and more at 91¿ìÉ«.

Image of Tessa McWatt ©Bill Knight

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