Blake Morrison on Memoir

About this event

On Memoir is a freewheeling exploration of narrative non-fiction, its challenges, ethics and charms, and its power to move and change us. From AI to ethics to politics to sex, there is something for every reader and writer here. Gleaned from a lifetime as a passionate reader of others’ lives, as well as an unflinchingly honest chronicler of his own, Morrison’s A-Z is a trove of thoughtful literary exploration, amusing observations, and fascinating finds.

Blake Morrison was educated at Nottingham University, McMaster University and University College, London. After working for the Times Literary Supplement, he went on to become literary editor of both The Observer and the Independent on Sunday before becoming a full-time writer in 1995.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, Blake has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. His best-known works are probably his two memoirs, And When Did You Last See Your Father? and Things My Mother Never Told Me. Blake’s most recent collection of poetry is Afterburn, published this year, which itself has elements of life writing, on his sister and on Elizabeth Bishop. Indeed, his well-known earlier collection Shingle Street includes material on the dear and departed as well as his elegiac poems on landscape.