Writers in Conversation: Claire Fuller

A special Writers in Conversation event that explores the connections between the art of writing and the art of music.  

Costa Prize-winning novelist Claire Fuller (‘Unsettled Ground’) is joined by her son, the musician Henry Ayling. The evening features music that Ayling wrote in response to Fuller’s latest novel, ‘Hunger and Thirst’. Fuller will read from the novel and discuss its origins and relationship to music in a conversation with author Carole Burns, host of Writers in Conversation and an associate professor teaching Creative Writing at the University of Southampton.

‘Hunger and Thirst’ is set in the ‘80s at the Winchester School of Art, where Fuller earned a BFA (check) in Sculpture at WSA. It tells the story of Ursula, a girl in care who carries out a dare that continues to haunt her decades later when she is an acclaimed artist.

Fuller often has a playlist while writing her prize-winning novels. For ‘Hunger and Thirst’, she instead asked her son to write music after she was finished writing. The novel explores themes of loneliness, female friendship, and the longing to belong.

Writers in Conversation is a reading series sponsored by the University’s English department in association with Turner Sims. It features some of today’s best fiction writers, poets, non-fiction writers and playwrights reading from their work and talking about their writing – how characters take shape and where ideas come from. Led by Carole Burns, author and associate professor, the evenings aim for an atmosphere that is relaxed and engaging, intelligent yet informal.

With book sales from October Books.