Ever wanted to join a bookclub, but could never quite find the time? Have you got a book you would love to chat about? Or an excerpt from a book that you would love to share? This is the place.

Find a table, pull up a chair and join our book brunch pop up book club/readers groups. With tables to cater for all age groups and authors and bookstagrammers galore there is a space for everyone here.

There is tea provided by Bird and Blend and more pastries than you could imagine, so if you are not sure about the sharing, come along enjoy a light brunch and just listen in on some great conversations.

Hannah Vincent is an award-winning playwright. She has also written two novels, Alarm Girl (2014) and The Weaning (2018) and a short story collection, She Clown & Other Stories (2020), whose title story was shortlisted for the 2017 Manchester Fiction Prize.

Hannah has a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Sussex. She teaches Creative Writing for the Open University and wrote course materials for the script strand of their MA. She also teaches at New Writing South and co-designed their Creative Non-Fiction Programme. Earlier in her career, she worked as a BBC Drama television script editor. Her own radio drama Come to Grief won the 2015 BBC Audio award for ‘best adaptation’. She lives in Brighton.

Dr Nicola Streeten is an anthropologist-turned-illustrator and comics scholar. She is the author of Billy, Me & You, an acclaimed graphic memoir about her bereavement following the death of her two-year old son which received Highly Commended in the Popular Medicine category of the 2012 British Medical Association Medical Book Awards.

In 2017 Nicola completed an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded PhD from the University of Sussex. Her research on UK Feminist Cartoons and Comics from the 1970s informed her contribution as co-editor with Cath Tate to The Inking Woman.

Nicola is director of LDComics a women creator-led forum welcoming all in promoting and celebrating comics works with a focus on the everyday.

Anna Burtt has worked in publishing for almost a decade and is currently Head of Events at a global writing consultancy. She is the host of the Brighton Book Club on Radio Reverb and has run a successful writing group for the last four years. She’s recently finished her first novel, which is set in Yorkshire and explores grief, sexuality, intergenerational friendships and drag.

Henry James Garrett is a screenwriter, author and illustrator. He stumbled into a peculiar cartooning career after dropping out of a Philosophy PhD due to anxiety. Since then, he’s created an illustrated op-ed for The New York Times, cartooned for Buzzfeed, The BBC, The Fawcett Society and London Pride, exhibited in Brighton and London, built up a loyal Instagram following, and gifted a drawing of her dog to Meghan Markle.

His plan had been to write philosophy papers that would make people kinder to one another, and he managed to find a strange route back to that through his cartooning when his debut book, This Book Will Make You Kinder: An Empathy Handbook, a mixture of metaethics and drawings, was published by Penguin in 2020.

Venue Accessibility

Wheelchair Access:

The Lighthouse venue is fully wheelchair accessible. The venue is on two floors.

• We have accessible toilets situated in Level 0 (Ground Floor) and Level -1 (Lower Ground Floor).

Ground Floor: Lighthouse Office, Reception Area & Conference Room.

• The Ground Floor is accessed at street level, there is no ramp required.

Lower Ground Floor: Digital Lounge & Toilets & Baby-changing facilities.

• Access to the Lower Ground Floor is by platform lift or stairs.

All levels can be accessed using a central lift which has a doorway measuring 90 cm. The lift can hold a maximum weight of 300kg. It is designed to carry two people and one wheelchair, however in cases where a power motorised wheelchair is very heavy it may only be possible to hold one wheelchair and one person. The platform lift is run by the user inside the lift pressing a button and keeping it pressed down until the desired floor is reached. Lighthouse staff will assist with use of the lift.

Important: A maximum of two wheelchairs is allowed at a time in the Lower Ground Floor / Digital Lounge for health and safety reasons.

Other facilities and support:

• Portable or backed seating can be provided on request, please ask a member of the team.
• For ticked events, a free companion ticket can be provided for support workers or assistants and seats can be reserved in specific locations as requested. Please inform a member of the time at the time of booking.
• We welcome assistance dogs and can provide them with a bowl of water.

Concessions

If you would like to come but are unable to purchase a ticket please feel free to contact us at admin@brightonbookfestival.co.uk and we will see what we can do.