Heading to the epic Latitude Festival this year? You’re in luck as author Lisa Blower is on the line up, talking about working class, regional fiction in The SpeakEasy (the only tent you really need to know about).

Lisa won The Guardian National Short Story Award in 2009, and was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2013 and longlisted for The Sunday Times Short Story Award in 2018.

Her fiction has appeared in The Guardian, Comma Press anthologies, The New Welsh Review, The Luminary, Short Story Sunday, and on Radio 4. She is a contributor to Common People edited by Kit de Waal. Her new collection of short stories,  It’s Gone Dark Over Bill’s Mother’s (Myriad, 2019) focuses on working class matriarchs. From the wise, witty and outspoken Nan of ‘Broken Crockery’, who has lived and worked in Stoke-on-Trent for all of her 92 years, to happy hooker Ruthie in ‘The Land of Make Believe’, to sleep-deprived Laura in ‘The Trees in the Wood’, to young mum Roxanne in ‘The Cherry Tree’, Lisa’s stories are bleakly funny and incredibly real.

More information coming soon. Head to the Latitude Festival 2019 website to see who else is going and pre-book your tickets.