About

Our first panel of the day features three northern women writers in conversation with our Chair of Trustees and fellow author, Lucy Powrie.

We’ll be hearing from Amanda Smyth (Look at You), SJ Bradley (Maps Of Imaginary Towns) and Anna Chilvers (East Coast Road).

Amanda Smyth is Irish Trinidadian, and author of four novels, Black Rock, A Kind of Eden, Fortune and Look at You, published in April 2025. Her first novel, Black Rock, won the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger, was nominated for an NAACP award, short listed for McKitterick Prize, and selected as an Oprah Winfrey Summer Read. Look at You, 2025, is published by Peepal Tree Press, based in Leeds.

SJ Bradley is an established northern author and tutor of literary fiction and short fiction from Wakefield. Her short fiction has appeared in various journals and anthologies including Conradology and Resist! Stories of Uprising from Comma Press. Maps of Imaginary Towns, 2024, is published by Fly on the Wall Press, based in Manchester. 

Anna Chilvers is a writer, a runner and teacher. She has a particular interest in place writing. She has three previous published novels, East Coast Road (2020),Tainted Love, (2016) and Falling Through Clouds (2010), all published by Bluemoose Books, based in Hebden Bridge. She has written a collection of short stories, Legging It (Pennine Prospects, 2012) and has also written poetry and scripts.