Louise Powell - Underdogs | Monday 13 July, 7.30pm

Louise Powell is an award-winning working class writer from Middlesbrough. She has written prize-winning plays that have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra and performed at nine theatres, as well as commissioned short art films, 'found' poetry publications and audio documentary series. Louise was published in Kit de Waal's acclaimed Common People anthology and has an MA from Durham University and a PhD from Sheffield Hallam University. She won the Sid Chaplin Northern Writers' Award 2023 for the opening of Underdogs, which is her debut novel.

Underdogs is published on 2 July 2026. Pre-order your copy of the book here.

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'These hands,' he said, and spread the paira them out wide so we could see the callouses and the little lines of coal dust underneath his skin; 'these hands were made to pick out summat precious from somewhere that doesn't wanna give it up.'

County Durham, 1998. The pits have closed and jobs are hard to come by, but charismatic ex-miner Bertie has a plan. He runs an underground gambling ring at the local dog track which offers down-on-their-luck blokes a way to turn their life around.

Reg's ten-year-old son George knows his dad hasn't been the same since Mam died, and the letters with scary red type that keep coming through the door can't be good news. So when Bertie offers Reg and George the chance to race Goldie, a beautiful fawn greyhound, they jump at the opportunity. To succeed they'll need to learn how to navigate the larger-than-life world of the flapping track, all while dark secrets from Bertie's past threaten to unravel the operation.

Do Reg and George have what it takes to pull off the gamble of a lifetime?