5x15: Live at The Tabernacle: April 2026

Speakers

Margaret Busby on the people and places that have shaped her exceptional life. Margaret Busby CBE, Hon. FRSL (Nana Akua Ackon) is a major cultural figure around the world. Her career has spanned work as a publisher, editor, interviewer, reviewer, scriptwriter, lyricist, radio and TV presenter, activist and mentor. In 2023 she was appointed President of English PEN. She became Britain’s then youngest and first Black woman publisher when she co-founded Allison & Busby in the 1960s. She has received multiple honorary doctorates and awards, including the London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award and the Royal African Society’s inaugural Africa Writes Lifetime Achievement Award. Her collected writings, Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century, are published by Hamish Hamilton.

Nicholas Crane on the secret history of Britain's footpaths. Nicholas Crane is an author, geographer and the recipient of numerous awards, most recently the 2024 Stanfords Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing. Between 2015 and 2018, he was president of the Royal Geographical Society. He is also known for his television work as lead presenter on the BAFTA-winning series COAST, among several others. He has written more than ten books, including The Making of the British Landscape, and his latest is The Path More Travelled, a passionate ode to walking.

Serena Kutchinsky on the object that consumed her father’s dreams, and spelled her family’s downfall. Serena Kutchinsky is an award-winning journalist who has held senior editorial roles at BBC News, the Sunday Times, Prospect, The New Statesman and Sky News. Currently head of news at The i Paper, she is also an active member of the Women in Journalism community, hosts and curates talks at festivals across the summer, and runs an Instagram account dedicated to the legacy of the House of Kutchinsky. Kutchinsky’s Egg is her first book.

Sara Wheeler on the life and work of Jan Morris. Sara Wheeler is an award-winning and internationally bestselling travel writer and biographer, and a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio; like Jan Morris, she has spent half her working life on the road. Her eleven books include Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica and Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard . She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a contributing editor of the Literary Review. Her latest book is Jan Morris: A Life.

Final speaker to be announced soon...

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