A L Kennedy in Conversation

We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time

A Wivenhoe Bookshop Zoom Event

7.30pm Friday 14th May

Tickets £5.00

BOOKING FORM ON THE RIGHT>>>>>>>>

Join us in conversation with novelist A L Kennedy and Colchester Writenight’s Emma Kittle Pey to discuss Alison’s superb new short story collection, We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time.

Tickets for this Zoom event are £5.00 and spaces are limited so please book in advance. Register, and a link will be circulated before the event. Signed copies of the book can ordered in advance (price £9.99).

‘Unsparing in her close examination of human relationships, A. L. Kennedy proves once again why she is regarded as one of our great storytellers.

Humour, fantasy, rage and despair both help and hinder the protagonists of these stories as they navigate changing circumstances, accumulating losses, moments of comprehension and tenderness. Here is the woman, hoping for a quiet day at the zoo, who finally snaps at a white man’s racist tirade and vents years of fury; the micro-celebrity who practices lines for a chat show on which he’ll never appear; and the woman who walks out of her honeymoon suite at midnight, perhaps for good.’

Publisher’s Synopsis

About A L Kennedy

A.L.Kennedy was born in Dundee. She lived for almost 30 years in Glasgow and now stays in North Essex.

A L Kennedy

She has won a variety of UK and international book awards, including a Lannan Award, the Costa Prize, The Heinrich Heine Preis, the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rees Prize. She has twice been included on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list. She has written 9 novels, 6 short story collections, 3 books of non-fiction and 3 books for children.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the Akademie der Kunst. She also writes for the stage, screen, TV and has created an extensive body of radio work including documentaries, monologues, dramas and essays. She also performs occasionally in one person shows and as a stand up comic.

About Emma Kittle Pey

Emma Kittle-Pey is a writer and teacher, working at the University of Essex, ACL Essex and in a primary school, and a member of the editorial board of Short Fiction Journal. She is studying for her PhD in Creative Writing and runs Colchester WriteNight, a community writing group open to all.

Praise for We Are Attempting to Survive Our Time

‘Kennedy dissects the small intimacies of inner thoughts… Her prose is typically direct, her sentences clear-cut and yet capable of great tenderness’ Observer

‘An author with a proven ability to see – truly see – and whose prose can fire like gunshots across the page’ New Statesman

‘Quite astonishing… A masterclass in the possibilities of the short story form.’ The Scotsman

‘Striking, expertly constructed… Kennedy’s exquisite blending of the limits of pain and courage recall Primo Levi.’ Catherine Taylor, Financial Times