I regularly give talks and lectures – at literary festivals, to students and other groups. It’s always good to work with a live audience, to have face-to-face conversations – I feel lucky to have these opportunities, and they get me away from the desk!
Penzance Literary Festival, photos © David R Morgan
Royal Literary Fund
From 2018–21, I was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Exeter University’s Penryn Campus. Since 2023, I have been an Associate Fellow on RLF’s Bridge writing programme for post-16 students. In 2023–24, I ran a Reading Round group in St Ives, Cornwall (above) – another RLF initiative – which it is great to see continuing, and thriving, as a self-run community group.
Public events
Events usually coincide with the publication of a new book or an invitation to talk about an earlier book, because of a connection with an exhibition somewhere. In March 2025, for example, I gave a talk at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łodz, Poland, where the UK-Poland Cultural Season opened with ‘St Ives and Elsewhere’, a wonderful show bringing together the work of twentieth-century British and Polish artists, curated by Paweł Polit.
I’ve had the privilege of giving talks in all kinds of venues – art galleries, museums, lecture halls and seminar rooms, village halls and primary schools, a Chelsea carpet store and a Somerset seed factory. Here’s a video from the Saïd Business School, Oxford University, where paintings by the St Ives modernists were on display.
Though I’m not primarily a children’s author, it’s always fun to be involved in family events. Particularly memorable are the storytelling and painting workshops I ran for the National Trust in a barn at Petworth House during their ‘Night Skies’ festival and in a huge marquee at Port Eliot Festival one year, while the rain pounded down and the mud outside got deeper by the minute.
