Our main speaker for June is Louise Morrish whose talk will explore how she uses research as a creative engine—shaping characters, sharpening settings, and deepening emotional truth. She will offer some practical strategies for gathering information efficiently, knowing when to stop, and transforming raw facts into vivid story material. Attendees will learn how to balance accuracy with imagination to produce fiction (particularly historical fiction) that feels both authentic and alive.
Louise Morrish is an author, bookseller, creative writing tutor, and historical speaker from Hampshire. She writes stories inspired by the lives of women in the past, who achieved extraordinary things, but whom history has forgotten.
Her debut novel, Operation Moonlight, won the Penguin Random House First Novel competition and was published in 2022. Her second novel, Women of War, was published in March 2025, and her third novel, The Library of War and Peace, was published in April 2026. She is working on another two historical novels.
Novel Ideas and Inspiration
Our guest speaker is author Lesley Bungay, whose talk will take us from Jane Austen to Mary Shelley, discussing the influences behind the story and why 1816 was
the perfect year for her dual timeline novel.
Lesley writes novels, short stories, flash fiction and the occasional Haiku.
A Year Without a Summer is her debut novel, published by Barnard Publishing Ltd.
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