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An evening with leading authors

Leading authors from the University of Kent will be reading extracts from their work at an event being organised by the University's Tonbridge Centre in conjunction with the School of English. Susan Wicks, Catherine Smith and Andrew McGuiness, who all teach at the University, will be joined by Kent students reading their own work from Night Train 5, an annually published collection of creative writing. The event takes place on Wednesday 12 March at the Riverside Function Room, Angel Centre, Tonbridge. Entrance is free but please book a place on 01732 352316 or email tonbridgeadmin@kent.ac.uk

Susan Wicks is the author of five collections of poems, two novels and a short memoir, Driving My Father. She was winner of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize and has been shortlisted for the T.S.Eliot and Forward Prizes. Her second collection was one of the Poetry Society's New Generation Poets titles and her first novel was serialised on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour. Her most recent book is De-iced (Bloodaxe, 2007) and a collection of short stories, Roll Up for the Arabian Derby, will soon by published by bluechrome. She is the Director of the new Centre for Creative Writing at the University.

Catherine Smith writes prose, poetry and drama. Widely published, her work has also been broadcast on BBC Radios 3 and 4. She has won the poetry collections category of The New Writer annual awards four times, and has won a range of regional and national competitions. In 2004 she was voted 'one of the top ten poets to have emerged in the UK in the last ten years' by Mslexia magazine, and was listed as one of the 'Next Generation' poets by the Poetry Book Society/Guardian. Short-listed for the Aldeburgh/Jerwood prize for Best First Collection 2005, her latest poetry collection, Lip, was published last year. A collection of short stories will be published by bluechrome in August.

Andrew McGuinness is a novelist and short story writer, although his first publication was non-fiction. A Guide to British Medieval Seals, co-written with Professor PDA Harvey, received excellent reviews in the UK and North America. He started writing fiction in 2001. Since then he has won various competitions and prizes for his short stories, including The Last Film which won first prize in The New Writer. His first novel, A Portrait of the Arsonist as a Young Man, will be published by bluechrome in September 2008. His first collection of short stories, Kafka's Chair and Other Bad Luck Stories, will also be published next spring. In 2007, he co-edited Night Train 5 with Susan Wicks.

If you would like to find out more about English, Literature, Creative Writing or Comparative Literary Studies courses at the University of Kent's Tonbridge Centre please email tonbridgeadmin@kent.ac.uk or call 01732 352316.

Contact: mediaoffice@kent.ac.uk

Story published at 2:38pm 3 March 2008