Queer History in Fiction with Claire Lynch & Anthony Shapland

Join us in conversation with Claire Lynch and Anthony Shapland to discuss their novels and how fiction can shine a light on LGBTQ+ history.

All the makings of a fascinating event!

A Family Matter by Claire Lynch

A mother following her heart. A father with the law on his side. A child caught in the middle. 1982 Dawn is a young wife and mother hemmed in by village life.

Then Hazel appears like a torch in the dark. Their attraction is instant and suddenly Dawn’s world is more joyful, and more complicated, than she ever expected. 2022 Maggie has always lived with an absence where her mother should be.

Her father never speaks of her and it feels impossible to ask. Then an official letter arrives with news from the past, and Maggie must face a truth far bigger than just her family’s secret.

A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland

When two quiet men form a tentative connection neither knows where it might lead. M has inherited his family's ironmongery business and B is younger by eleven years and can see no future in the place where he has grown up, but when M offers him a job and lodgings, he accepts. As the two men work side by side in the shop, they also begin a life together in their one shared room above - the kind of life they never imagined possible and that risks everything if their public performance were to slip.

Unfolding in South Wales against the backdrop of Section 28, the age of consent debate and the HIV and AIDS crisis, this is a tender and resonant love story, and a powerful debut.