Pity: Andrew McMillan, with Paul Farley

Two award-winning poets come together at WoWFEST to launch a debut novel! Andrew McMillan, whose Physical was the only poetry collection to ever win the Guardian First Book Award, will be reading from his debut novel Pity, and in conversation with multi-award winning poet Paul Farley.  

Pity explores community, masculinity and post-industrialisation in Northern England amidst the backdrop of dying towns and loss of purpose. It is described as unmissable by the Sunday Times, Independent, New Statesman, Guardian and i-D, and acclaimed by a host of writers, including Ocean Vuong, Max Porter, Douglas Stuart, Liz Berry, Jon McGregor and Helen Mort. 

Paul Farley will be hosting the launch and author Q&A.   

Andrew McMillan was born in Barnsley in 1988. His debut collection of poetry, Physical, was ‘a once-in-a-generation debut that causes everyone to sit up and take notice’ (Sarah Crown, Daily Telegraph). Physical was the only poetry book to ever win the Guardian First Book Award; it was also awarded a Somerset Maugham award, an Eric Gregory Award, the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2019 it was voted as one of the Top 25 Poetry Books of the Past 25 Years by the Booksellers Association. His second collection, Playtime, won the inaugural Polari Prize. A third collection, Pandemonium, was published in 2021. In 2022 he co-edited the acclaimed anthology 100 Queer Poems, which was shortlisted in the British Book Awards. He is professor of contemporary writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

Paul Farley, Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, is the author of five collections of poetry, including The Ice Age (Picador), awarded the Whitbread Poetry Prize in 2002, and The Mizzy (2019). He is also the co-author of Edgelands (Jonathan Cape, 2011). A frequent broadcaster, he presented BBC Radio 4’s The Echo Chamber, and recently presented Blasts from the Megaphone on Radio 4, which featured Writing on the Wall’s Mersey Sounds installation, and interviews with WoW’s Co-Directors, Mike Morris and Madeline Heneghan.

Tuesday 14th May, 6.30pm 

Waterstones, 12 College Lane, Liverpool L1 3DL 

Ticket price £8 (Discounted price for Waterstones Plus Card holders: £7) 

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