The Principal Hotel, (formerly The George), Edinburgh
Speakers: Alice Allan and Laura Barnett with Kathryn Williams
Open My Eyes That I May See Marvellous Things by Alice Allan
The Author
Alice Allan grew up in rural Devon then studied English at Cambridge University. She worked as an actress and a corporate trainer in London and Tokyo, then as a lactation consultant in public hospitals in Addis Ababa, where she taught about breastfeeding, skin-to-skin and kangaroo care for premature babies. She has written for a number of publications including The Telegraph, The Sunday Express, the Ethiopian Herald, Green Parent and The Mother Magazine. She currently lives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan with her diplomat husband, two daughters and a large Ethiopian street dog called Frank. Open MyEyes is her first novel. It was longlisted for the MsLexia Novel prize.
Praise for Alice Allan
Allan writes evocatively of [Ethiopia]…The smells, customs, food, landmarks and patterns of life that her characters observe bring the country alive for the reader, creating an emotional and vibrant novel. Juno Magazine
The Book
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: when adopted midwife Mariam embarks on a project to protect an abandoned premature baby, she is forced to face her own abandonment years before. Time is running out before the baby is sent to the orphanage. A mysterious character from the city surrounding the hospital will be crucial in determining the baby’s fate, as will a workaholic British doctor with whom Mariam finds herself falling in love. Alice Allan’s debut novel is an original, vivid and moving story about attachment, loss and the power of touch.
Greatest Hits by Laura Barnett (with Kathryn Williams)
The Author
Laura is a writer, journalist and theatre critic. She has worked for The Guardian,the Daily Telegraph, The Observer and Time Out, as well as several other national newspapers and magazines. She has published award-winning short stories and a compendium of advice for actors, Advice From the Players.The Versions of Us, her first novel, spent 10 weeks in the top 20 Bestsellers list and had rave reviews. TV rights have now been optioned by Trademark Films. Greatest Hits is her second novel and she is currently collaborating with Mercury-nominated singer song-writer Kathryn Williams in order to bring it to life.
She was born in 1982 in south London where she now lives with her husband. She studied Spanish and Italian at Cambridge University and newspaper journalism at City University, London.
Praise for Laura Barnett
Has a wisdom and a harmony that is satisfying. This engaging, emotionally charged novel about music, motherhood and mental illness deserves to be a hit. The Guardian
The Book
One day. Sixteen songs. The soundtrack of a lifetime… Alone in her studio, Cass Wheeler is taking a journey back into her past. After a silence of ten years, the singer-songwriter is picking the sixteen tracks that have defined her – sixteen key moments in her life – for a uniquely personal Greatest Hits album. In the course of this one day, both ordinary and extraordinary, the story of Cass’s life emerges – a story of highs and lows, of music, friendship and ambition, of great love and great loss. But what prompted her to retreat all those years ago, and is there a way for her to make peace with her past? Daughter. Mother. Singer. Lover. What are the memories that mean the most?
In this bittersweet and poignant follow-up to the Number One bestselling The Versions of Us, Laura Barnett cements her position as one of the most talented storytellers of her generation.
Bookings
If you would like tickets for a Gliterary Lunch, simply download and print off this form for completion and post it out with a cheque made payable to Gliterary Lunches or to pay online, please request an invoice. Confirmation of your booking will be sent out to you along with information about the menu, table planning and how to pre-order wine and books if required.
If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to call us.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.