Tickets

AGM only: free to members, but please reserve a place
AGM and Readings (members): £10
Readings only, arrive from 6.15pm (non-members): £15

All ticket prices include VAT. A glass of wine is included in the ticket price for event attendees. 

Bookings can also be made over the phone on 020 7373 6642 or by sending a cheque made payable to 'The Society of Authors' to our address. Please quote the event code 632 when booking over the phone, or note on the reverse of your cheque, alongside with your membership number. 

We can offer a limited number of audio tickets for members who are unable to attend the event in person. Participants will be able listen and email questions during the event, but we will need to liaise with you in advance to arrange the technical details. Please book as normal and then contact Lily (llevinson@societyofauthors.org) and you will be sent further instructions.

Annual General Meeting

5.30 - 6.15pm

Chair's report and results of committee elections announced. Please email Lily at llevinson@societyofauthors.org with any issues that you would like to raise in advance. 

The AGM is open to SoA Members and Associates only. It is free to attend, but please reserve your place.

Four Readings

*Previous information about this event referred to Menna Elfyn as a speaker. Sadly Menna is no longer able to attend, but Philip Gross has kindly agreed to take her place. Please find details below.*

6.30 - 7.50pm

Four poets from across the UK discuss their careers and practices, and read from their work.

Colette Bryce was born in Derry, Northern Ireland.The Whole & Rain-domed Universe (2014) was awarded a special Ewart-Briggs Award and shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. Her poem 'The Full Indian Rope Trick' won the National Poetry Competition in 2003 and her Selected Poems was published by Picador earlier this year. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 2010 and now works in the North East of England. 

Kayo Chingonyi's first full-length collection Kumukanda was published by Chatto & Windus this year. Warsan Shire described it as "tender, nostalgic and at times darkly hilarious" and The Guardian calls him a performer who "reads his poems with an immediacy that gives each one to you like a present". In 2012, he won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and represented Zambia at the Poetry Parnassus Festival at the Southbank Centre. 

Photo: Naomi Woddis

Philip Gross has published some twenty collections of poetry, for adults and young people. The Water Table won the T.S.Eliot Prize 2009, and Love Songs of Carbon won the Roland Mathias Award (Wales Book of The Year) in 2016. A new collection, A Bright Acoustic, came out from Bloodaxe this year. He is a keen collaborator across artforms, most recently with artist Valerie Coffin Price on A Fold In The River (Seren, 2015).

Liz Niven's poetry collections and pamphlets are in English and Scots. Her first collection, Stravaigin, was published by Canongate, further collections by Luath Press. She is a specialist in Scots language in education, writing and editing a wide range of resources including the Scots dossier for Mercator and the European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages. She is an honorary Fellow of the Association of Scottish Literature and a Board member of Scottish PEN. Awards include the McCash/Herald Scots Poetry prize and TESS/Saltire. PN Review has described her poetry as "mature and humane". 

7.50 - 8.30pm

Have a glass of wine and chat to fellow event attendees.