A selection of bookshop readings, performances, literary lunches, salons, festivals and other writerly goings-on are listed here and regularly updated.
For your wider literary and cultural fix, check out the in-person and virtual event listings at the British Library, the London Review Bookshop, Waterstones, English PEN, the Southbank Centre, publisher and author websites and social media streams, as well as those of your local organisations and venues.
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Tuesday 27 January to Tuesday 2 June
The Conversation 2026 Spring Season: Beyond Algorithms. Beyond Orthodoxy. Real Insight for a Just World
St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 4JJ
7 pm to 8:30 pm
£10 in-person or live stream + £3.95 booking fee
Buy all nine conversations for just £45
The Conversation 2026 Spring Season, held in the atmospheric Crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields, explores social justice and how we imagine the world with curiosity, knowledge and wisdom – a humane intelligence that values insight and understanding over news and information. The interviews take place live and online, chaired by series director Peter Florence, Caitlin McNamara and Sam Wells. They last an hour followed by a 30-minute public Q&A, then a book-signing and informal conversation.
Tuesday 27 January
Ian McEwan: What We Can Know
Tuesday 3 February
Gary Younge: An Act of Resistance
Tuesday 10 February
Armistead Maupin: 50 Years on Barbary Lane
Monday 9 March
Carole Cadwalladr: How to Survive the Broligarchy
Tuesday 24 March
Hallie Rubenhold: The Women
Tuesday 7 April
Daniel M. Davis: World Health Day
Tuesday 21 April
Mya-Rose Craig: Birdgirl
Tuesday 28 April
Kate Bowler: Joyful Anyway
Tuesday 2 June
Sarah Churchwell: The American Dream at 250
More info and book
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Thursday 12 March
Nation of Strangers: Ece Temelkuran in conversation with Brian Eno
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London SE1 8XX
7:45 pm to 9 pm
£15 + £3.50 booking fee; limited concessions
‘Dear stranger. Are you home? Do you feel at home? For how much longer?’
Across the world, the number of refugees and exiles, the dispossessed and displaced, the politically homeless and the economically excluded is growing. In the decade since she left her own home of Türkiye, Ece Temelkuran has been a political Cassandra, warning those convinced it couldn’t happen in their country that fascism is coming. Her new book, Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century, is a series of letters from one stranger to another. Politically attuned and deeply personal, this heartening correspondence is poetic yet precise. It shows how, as we all become strangers, our home will depend on the strength we find with one another.
More info and book
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Ongoing
Arvon courses and retreats
Online or in-person, from one hour at home to five weeks at historic writers’ houses in Devon, Shropshire and Yorkshire, you can find inspiration, support and transform your writing with Arvon. Discover a range of creative writing courses and events for writers of any genre and any level of experience.
Residential courses for Winter/Spring 2026 include Narrative Non-Fiction: Finding Your Story with Adam Farrer, Miranda France and Catherine Taylor (Lumb Bank, 2 to 7 February); Advanced Poetry: A Sense of Movement with Fiona Sampson, Sean O’Brien and Stephen Romer (Totleigh Barton, 2 to 7 February); Fiction: New Beginnings with Conor O’Callaghan, Fiona Mozley and Evie Wyld (The Hurst, 2 to 7 February); Writing a Novel: Make Your Story Happen with Charlotte Mendelson, Lottie Moggach and Ben Markovits (Totleigh Barton, 23 to 28 February); Fiction and Non-Fiction: Crafting Your Writing Life with Sarah Moss and Harriet Harris, (Lumb Bank, 23 to 26 February); Poetry: Time and Space for Your Creativity with Jane Commane, Mona Arshi and Gregory Leadbetter (The Hurst, 2 to 7 March); Short Story: Making Every Word Count with Vanessa Onwuemezi, Chris Power and Anna Wood (Lumb Bank, 2 to 7 March); and Editing Fiction and Non-Fiction: How to Refine and Polish Your Work-in-Progress with Hannah Chukwu, Claire Lynch and Ed Wilson (Totleigh Barton, 2 to 7 March).
More info and book
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