Afternoon Tea with Olivia Laing

With her two sublime and revelatory books, To The River and The Trip to Echo Spring, Olivia Laing has established a reputation as one of the UK’s finest writers of non-fiction. Like Robert Macfarlane, Rebecca Solnit and WG Sebald, she writes beautiful passages that blend literary biography, memoir and travel with personal and poetic observations. Nick Cave declared it ‘a beautiful book that has stayed with me in a profound way.’ Recently appointed writer in residence at Manchester’s iconic Midland Hotel, Laing has been commissioned by MLF and the Midland to write a piece of work inspired by the hotel. Come and hear her read and discuss her work over tea and scones. For those who wish to know more about the Midland, there will also be an optional tour of the hotel at 1pm with historian Barbara Frost.