Beth Underdown, Kate Hamer

Beth Underdown was born in Rochdale in 1987. Her debut novel, The Witchfinder's Sister, is based on the witch-hunts orchestrated by Matthew Hopkins in seventeenth century Essex, and is out in the UK and US with Penguin Random House in spring 2017. Beth joined the Centre for New Writing in 2016 as a Lecturer in Creative Writing.

Kate Hamer grew up in Pembrokeshire and has recently been awarded a Literature Wales bursary. Her bestselling novel The Girl in the Red Coat was a no 3. Sunday Times bestseller and shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award, the Bookseller Industry Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year, the John Creasey New Blood Dagger and Wales Book of the Year. Her second novel The Doll’s Funeral is published in February 2017.

This event will be introduced by Jeanette Winterson, acclaimed author and Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at The University of Manchester.