Hachette's Pride network hosts free Stella Duffy event

Hachette UK’s Pride network is hosting an event with Virago author Stella Duffy, as part of a series of sessions devoted to LGBTQIA+ novelists.

The webinar, which will be hosted on Zoom on 28th April from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., will discuss Duffy’s latest novel, Lullaby Beach, billed as “a brilliant story of loss and love, revenge and redemption”.

Event host Sophia Blackwell, who is co-chair of the LGBTQIA+ Pride network, will discuss the themes in the book with Duffy, including class, relationships, family, women’s rights, post-war conflicts and concerns, and dealing with the aftermath of death, loss and shame.

The Pride network will also be discussing Duffy’s career as a writer, theatre-maker and co-founder of community cohesion organisation Fun Palaces as well as her new work as a trainee existential psychotherapist and teaching yoga for writing. The discussion will also cover her earlier contemporary fiction and introduce it to a new audience.

This is the second time that Hachette Pride has worked with Duffy for a LGBTQIA+ event. She was involved in the network’s 2019 “Pride in Writing” event in partnership with Waterstones.

Hachette Pride has previously partnered with fellow employee network, Thrive, for a session on The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr and one of Hachette UK’s divisions, Quercus, for Laura Kay’s debut novel, The Split. The events form part of Hachette UK’s wider diversity and inclusion programme, Changing the Story, which marks its fifth anniversary this year.

Duffy said: “Lullaby Beach was both a joy and very difficult to write — the violence and shame that permeate the novel, both contrasting to and alongside love and care, feel like enormous and hugely vital subjects to tackle - personally, at this stage in my career, and in our wider society.”

Blackwell added: “It will be a real honour to host this event. I grew up reading Stella’s novels and always look forward to seeing her and being on panels with her — she’s a real inspiration and is always trying something new, both in her fiction and outside it.”

Tickets are free and can be registered for online.