Norwich Book Slam

Each month in 2024, a handful of emerging authors will read from their latest books, in the intimate comfort of our Music Room. Grab yourself a drink from the bar and join other book lovers as these fresh voices bring their words to life, topped off with a Q&A hosted by Chris Parker.

• Ashley Hickson-Lovence is a novelist, poet and university tutor with a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia. His debut novel - The 392 - was published in 2019 and his second novel - Your Show - was released in 2022. His first young adult verse novel - Wild East - comes out from Penguin next month.
• Richard Lambert’s debut novel - The Wolf Road - was a book of the year in the Guardian, Sunday Times, and Financial Times and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal. His latest novel is The Republic of Dreams, a fantasy adventure for YA readers, and was an Observer book of the year, 2023. He has had many different jobs including teaching medieval history and is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the UEA.
• Andrew Hook is a prolific short story writer whose fiction has appeared in magazines from Ambit to Interzone, and has been reprinted in the Best British Horror and Best British Short Stories series. His collection - Candescent Blooms - (Salt Publishing), was reviewed as ‘Marvellous – 5 stars’ in the Telegraph and was short-listed for a British Fantasy Society award. Commercial Book - his next collection - features forty short stories of exactly 1000 words in length. He lives in Norwich.
• Varsha Shah is the author of Ajay and The Mumbai Sun (shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2023) and Ajay and the Jaipur Moon. She always dreamt of being a writer. After studying Law at Cambridge University, she worked for several years as a solicitor and has written articles for publications including Legal Week, Legal Week Global, The Times Education Supplement, and the online edition of Harper's Bazaar. She has taught English as a foreign language in both Japan and Canada. She loves travelling and basketball.
• Paul Stanbridge grew up in Essex. Forbidden Line - his debut novel - was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott prize and won the inaugural Republic of Consciousness first novel prize. His Encyclopaedia of St Arbuc (st-arbuc.co.uk) has been described as “a work of jaw-dropping originality...immersive, compelling, frustrating, dazzlingly original and deeply unsettling”. My Mind to Me A Kingdom Is, described as “unforgettably beautiful” in the TLS, was published by Galley Beggar Press in 2022. He lives in Norwich.