Brigid Lowe traces her descent from travellers, circus performers, mill workers and gallowglass warriors. She takes photographs of flowers, forages her food, clambers pinnacles, and swims in ice and caves and bottomless pools. She studied literature at Bangor, completed a doctorate at Oxford, and went on to teach and research at Sheffield and Cambridge Universities, publishing a book and many essays on the art of fiction. In The Bloody Branch , a vital and visceral novel, Brigid Lowe casts ancient light on desire, sex and our relationship with nature and brings Celtic heroines to explosive, sensuous, blossoming new life. Elizabeth Sulis Kim ‘s writing has appeared in places such as BBC Culture, Mslexia, Hellebore, Fiddler’s Green, Litro, The Guardian, The Independent, Refinery29, and the LA Review of Books. She is the founding editor of Cunning Folk, the popular independent magazine about magic, mythology, folklore and the occult. She grew up in the rural West Country and now lives in Scotland. Steeped in folklore, mythology, magic and religion, The Book of Beasts tells the story of our shapeshifting relationships with animals, from reverence to persecution, friendship to fear, awe to indifference. It asks us what we actually know about the creatures we share this world with – and offers us a different way of living together.

Description supplied by the event organiser.