Jenny Lewis

At the Albion Beatnik Bookstore, 5-7pm, Sunday 23 June

Introduced by Jenny Lewis. Bring a poem to share after the interval.
Tea, coffee and cake available from the cafe. Tickets £2 at the door.

Valerie Laws’s poems of sex, death and pathology are both funny and moving and tackle taboo subjects with cutting-edge science and rich sensuality. Her latest collection, All That Lives, arises largely from residencies in pathology and neuroscience research institutes.

We trace Laws’ personal quest to understand the science of dying down to brain cell level. Concurrently, her rediscovery of modern sex and dating brings hilarious, earthy life to an unflinching collection, her tenth book, which has won many prizes and distinctions including a Wellcome Trust Arts Award.

The poems are extraordinary. Desire and dementia, the death of thebrain and the life of the body jostle in All that Lives. These poems provoke thought, shock with sadness, and revive. They are alive.

Alison Brackenbury.

A poet brings a new vocabulary to pathological realities.

Graham P Mulley, British Medical Journal

Valerie will also read from The Rotting Spot, her award-winning crime
novel, featuring a skull-collector and a new detective pairing, and a
sneak peek at her forthcoming thriller.

A fresh and talented new voice in crime-writing

Ann Cleeves.

A darkly intriguing debut

Val McDermid.