I was delighted to be asked to chair a recent panel discussion for the British Academy on Dystopian Literature in Our Time. The panel brought together three important contemporary writers, Season Butler (author of Cygnet, 2019), Francesca Haig (author of The Fire Sermon trilogy, 2014-17) and...

As part of the New Scientist Live 2017 festival of ideas, I was thrilled to be asked to interview Margaret Atwood. The event, titled "Science, fiction and the future", took place on the Main Stage – VIP Area at the ExCeL Centre in London on Sunday 1st October...

Birkbeck's Centre for Contemporary Literature recently organised a one-day conference titled "Dystopia Now," held at the School of Arts on 26 May 2017. I was really thrilled to be asked to deliver the opening keynote for the conference, alongside Dr Mark Bould who gave the...

As part of the Birkbeck Arts Week 2017 programme, I was invited to join my Birkbeck Colleague Dr Ben Worthy and Professor Jean Seaton for a panel discussion about the relevance of Orwell's landmark dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) to our own moment of political...

I've been invited to give a public lecture as part of Durham University Palace Green Library's Exhibition on "Time Machines: The Past, the Future, and How Stories Take Us There" on Wednesday 7th June 2017. My talk will be titled "Utopia in Dark Times" (see here for...