Description
What does it mean to write from – and about – the North? Join authors Marcia Hutchinson and Liz Mistry for a conversation exploring Northern identity, representation, and storytelling rooted in place.
From crime fiction to memoir, their work brings the voices, landscapes, and complexities of the North to life, challenging stereotypes and championing diverse perspectives. Together, they’ll discuss how geography shapes narrative, the publishing industry’s Southern bias, and why Northern stories matter now more than ever.
Whether you’re a reader, writer, or proud Northerner, this event offers an illuminating journey through the literary landscapes of the North.
About the Speakers
Liz Mistry
Liz Mistry, moved to Yorkshire the late ’80s, She crafts gritty crime fiction rooted in Bradford. Childhood tales from Scotland infuse her work with intrigue, inspiring her latest series set in West Lothian. Battling clinical depression and anxiety, she intertwines mental health themes into her narratives, influenced by her MA in Creative Writing from Leeds Trinity University. Completing a doctorate in creative writing, she explores representation in her beloved genre. Supported by her husband, three children, and a vast British Indian family, Liz finds solace in Scottish and Yorkshire landscapes, travel, music, and blogging on crime fiction.
Marcia Hutchinson
Marcia Hutchinson was born in Manningham, Bradford the seventh of nine children to Windrush era Jamaican parents. The first pupil from her school to go to Oxford she worked as a lawyer before returning to the North. She has taken inspiration from her childhood to write her debut solo novel The Mercy Step which is also set in Manningham and has been described by the Observer as “dark, humorous, and passionately captures the unique realities of the northern Black experience. Powerfully told from a child’s vantage point, the storytelling is imaginative and animated, yet piercing in all the right places.”
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