Vanguard at Harlow

Vanguard Readings is a London-based reading series that has been running monthly since 2011 and has so far included more than 70 events. Vanguard on Tour started in 2016 and has so far made stops at Grasmere, Birmingham, Hay-on-Wye, Margate, Norwich, Leeds, Ludlow, Manchester, Salisbury, Brighton, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Workington, Bristol - and now Harlow. Its founder, Richard Skinner, is a poet, novelist and Director of the Fiction programme at the Faber Academy - and credited on the back of many best-selling books.

The Harlow event is taking place at the Harlow Playhouse and is curated and hosted by local writer Emma Vandore, and showcases six new writers and established authors, all reading for around 10 minutes each. As well as Richard and Emma, who will read from her novel-in-progress And, Breathe, you will hear from Harlow-born Jason Cowley, editor of the New Statesman, who will read a recent memoir-essay published in Granta called New Town Blues; award-winning local playwright Simon Mawdsley, who will read with an actor; Dunmow-based YA author John Tarrow who will read from his recently published novel The Stranger’s Guide to Talliston; and J.S. Watts, a poet and novelist based in East Anglia, who will read from her second novel Witchlight.