An Evening with Frances Wise in Cambridge

Join writers and academics Chloë Houston and Adam Smyth publishing under the name Frances Wise as they discuss their debut novel The Book Game. Set at a country house writers’ retreat, The Book Game is a witty, astute novel about ambition, competition, regret and desire; about paths not taken and last chances suddenly seized; about the games people play. It asks what it means, in all senses, to be in the middle of life. They will be in conversation with author Kate Sawyer.

Chloë Houston is Associate Professor of early modern drama and joint Head of the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading. She is the author of academic monographs on Renaissance utopias and on the Persian empire in early modern English drama, and has edited collections of essays on utopias, travel writing, and multilingualism in Renaissance literature.

Adam Smyth is Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, Oxford University. He is the author of four books and the editor or co-editor of four collections of essays. Adam is a founder member of the 39 Steps Press printing collective, based in a barn in Oxfordshire. He co-hosts the literary podcast and sometime radio show LitBits. He writes regularly for the London Review of Books.

Kate Sawyer worked as an actor and theatre and events producer before writing several short films and then turning her hand to fiction. Her debut novel, The Stranding, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, won the East Anglian fiction prize, and was adapted for BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime. Her second novel This Family was a Waterstones Book Of The Month and Waterstones Paperback of the Year 2024. She is the founder and host of the Novel Experience podcast and is the Producer and Programme Curator for annual Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival.

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