Lily Dunn and Caro Giles - Writing Memoir | Wednesday 29 October, 6.30pm

Join us for an evening with two exceptional writers - Lily Dunn and Caro Giles - as they discuss the art and craft of memoir, and their experience of writing.

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Lily Dunn is a memoirist, teacher, and mentor. Her literary memoir Sins of My Father was published to great acclaim in 2022 and was named Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year by both The Guardian and The Spectator. Lily's latest book, Into Being: the Radical Craft of Memoir and its Power to Transform, is an essential guide to writing memoir in a radical and empowering way.

Into Being demystifies the memoirist's art, helping readers to find meaning in raw experience and elevate the personal to the universal. She considers intriguing questions, from why our memories give greater significance to certain events to how we can write honestly without intruding too far into the lives of our loved ones. She also explores how writers are extending the memoir form to create something hybrid, playful and subversive. In an age of social media, filled with confessions, re-inventions and distortions of the self, the question of what it means to be an individual is more urgent than ever. Into being shows readers how to turn writing memoir into a journey of discovery - one that can be shared with the whole world.

Caro Giles is the author of Twelve Moons and winner of the inaugural BBC Countryfile New Writer Award; she writes a monthly column for Psychologies magazine and her own Substack. Caro's new book, Unschooled: the story of a family that doesn't fit in, is a searing memoir about the love and true grit of a family forging its own path.

With lyrical prose and unflinching honesty, Caro chronicles the relentless bureaucracy and isolation of being a single mother navigating a system that refuses to see her children. Through her own story, Caro interrogates a society that nurtures conformity rather than difference, and a culture that continues to place the burden of childcare on mothers. Being unschooled has become an ongoing act of resistance and a political statement, one that demands a more inclusive, compassionate education system that recognises and supports every child's unique needs.

Event chaired by Kathryn Tann, author of Seaglass.