Growing Brave: Donna Ashworth with Andrea McLean at Waterstones Deansgate

We are delighted to welcome bestselling author and poet Donna Ashworth to Deansgate in celebration of her new collection, . Packed full of compassionate and reassuring poems and quotes from the bestselling author of Wild Hope, Growing Brave is the perfect balm for complicated and disorientating times. Donna is joined in conversation by Loose Women's Andrea McLean.

About Growing Brave

In this powerful new collection of wisdom and poetry, Donna Ashworth helps us to find strength and courage on the days we feel lost, to pick ourselves up when times are hard, to soothe fear and self-doubt when we are in their grip, and to let in more life and love as we brave our challenges.

Every day we are bombarded by thoughts, feelings and information that make us feel anxious and afraid. We worry we don't measure up, we are scared of failure and we find it hard to be ourselves. We also feel powerless watching the world getting messier. Fear is a limiting factor for many of us and if we don't challenge it we can find ourselves keeping out more of the good stuff in life than the bad.

With poems such as 'One Day You'll See', 'Growing in Moonlight', 'The Comparing' and 'Always There', bestselling author Donna Ashworth helps us to see that whatever we are facing, no matter how small or afraid we feel, we make the biggest difference in this world and to our own happiness when we are brave enough to show up as ourselves.

About the author

Donna Ashworth is a Sunday Times bestselling author and the UK's number 1 bestselling poet. She lives in the hills of Scotland with her husband, two sons, and Brian and Dave (the dogs). Donna started her social media accounts in 2018 in a bid to create a 'safe' social space for women to come together and connect, but her love of all things wordy quickly became the focus, and a past love for poetry was reignited. Seven books and over 1.4 million followers later, Donna is delighted daily with her mission to shower the world with words and bring poetry back into focus.

'My head is a constant fizz of emotions, poetry and prose, so it's a delight to be able to release those bath-bombs into the world and watch the bubbles travel. I believe the right words, at the right time, hold so much power, can bring huge comfort and are vital in these troubled times.'

Donna's bestselling books include Wild Hope, I Wish I Knew, Love, Loss, Life and To the Women.

Host or Publisher Waterstones