ESEA Lit Fest: On rules and devotion
About this Event
How do we exist within the moral codes that structure our lives? And what happens when we’re compelled to cross these boundaries? Join Catherine Cho and Stephanie Sy-Quia as they discuss rules and rule-breaking in their acclaimed latest novels.
Catherine Cho is the author of The Devoted, one of ELLE’s most anticipated novels of 2026, and the memoir Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness, which was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize. She was a finalist for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2020. Her writing has appeared in the East Side Voices collection, Sunday Times Magazine, Sunday Times Style, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Grazia, i Paper and Refinery29. Originally from Kentucky in the United States, she now lives with her family in London.
Stephanie Sy-Quia was born in California in 1995, grew up in Paris and is based in London,where she teaches English in a secondary school. Her writing and criticism have been published in the Guardian, Granta, TLS and others. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic and has twice been shortlisted for the FT Bodley Head Essay Prize.Her debut poetry collection Amnion (2021) won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and received a Somerset Maugham Award, was a Poetry Book Society Winter Recommendation, and was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio and RSL Ondaatje Prizes. Stephanie Sy-Quia is the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award. She makes linocut prints in her spare time. Her grandfather was a Catholic priest.
Joanna Lee is a co-founder of ESEA Lit Fest, the UK’s award-winning East and South East Asian literary festival. Her criticism has appeared in the Guardian, the LA Review of Books, The White Review, among others. She works in publishing as Editorial Director at Juniper, a literary fiction imprint of HarperCollins, and was named a Bookseller Rising Star in 2025.
Venue: Level 6 Auditorium, Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0DT*
*Please note our Level 6 auditorium is fully accessable via the lifts.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 5.00 to GBP 8.00
