Wendy Erskine is the author of short story collections Sweet Home (2018) and Dance Move (2022). Her work has been published in The Stinging Fly, Winter Papers, Female Lines: New Writing from Northern Ireland and Being Various: New Irish Short Stories and read on BBC Radio 4. Sweet Home was Book of the Year in the Guardian, The White Review, Observer, New Statesman, and TLS. It won the 2020 Butler Literary Award, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2019 and longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2019. The story ‘Inakeen’ was longlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Prize 2019.
Wendy Erskine’s Festival appearance is generously supported by Culture Ireland.
Ann Cleeves is the author of over 30 critically acclaimed novels and was awarded the highest accolade in crime writing, the CWA Diamond Dagger, in 2017. She created the popular detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez, who can now be found on television in ITV’s Vera and BBC One’s Shetland. The TV series, and the books they are based on, have become international sensations, capturing the minds of millions worldwide. The first book in the Two Rivers series, The Long Call, was published to critical acclaim and is currently being adapted for television. She lives in North Tyneside, England.