Join Luke Kennard, Booker Prize Shortlisted Author in Conversation with Abi Curtis, Professor of Creative Writing at York St John University

Luke Kennard's Novel Black Bag has been shortlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize. He will be in conversation with Abi Curtis, Professor of Creative Writing at York St John University.

‘I came across the original 1960s black bag experiment by accident when I was researching something else. It caught my attention, but I was more interested in the person playing black bag than the results of the study. My narrator is a struggling actor, but I think it’s about trying to be an artist of any kind in the current moment, when arts and culture are so systematically undervalued, when the doubts seem to loom larger than the possibilities. It really tests your hubristic self-belief, and leaves you with a kind of all-pervading shame, which is always a good subject matter for fiction.’

6.30pm - 7.00pm

Doors open for arrivals

7.00pm - 8.30pm

Event takes place

8.30pm

Event ends

*Please note that this event may contain some adult content and mild swearing. Not suitable for under 16s.

About Luke Kennard

"Luke Kennard is an award-winning poet and novelist who lives in Birmingham. His first collection was published in 2005, winning an Eric Gregory award, and his work takes in a bricolage of themes and styles from continental absurdism, theology, obscure psychology experiments to the lyric. His fifth collection, Cain (2016), was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and his sixth, Notes on the Sonnets, an anarchic response to Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, won the Forward prize for best collection in 2021. His most recent book of poems, The Book of Jonah, was published by Picador in 2025. His first novel, The Transition (2017), was BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Award. He reviews fiction and poetry for The Guardian, The Telegraph and the TLS and is a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Birmingham. His latest novel, Black Bag, was published by John Murray in 2026 and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.”

Instagram @luukekennard

About Abi Curtis

Abi Curtis is Professor of Creative Writing at York St John University. She is the author of two poetry collections and two novels and has received both an Eric Gregory Award and Somerset Maugham Award. She is the editor of Blood & Cord: Writers on Early Parenthood and has written on motherhood, speculative fiction and bees.

Instagram @AbiCurtisBooks

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