Posted Monday April 27th 2009
by Rosa Anderson

On the Thursday before Easter, four Booktrusters wended their way to the London Review Bookshop for a ‘Faber Firsts’ night – in this case, to hear Sarah Hall and Clare Wigfall discuss their publishing debuts. We’re huge fans of the two authors, both Booktrust prizewinners (Sarah’s novel The Carhullan Army was the John Llewellyn Rhys 2007 winner, and Clare’s short story 'The Numbers' won the BBC National Short Story Award 2008), so it was a real treat to hear them talk about and read from their work.

Clare read her story – 'A Return Ticket to Epsom', from her collection The Loudest Sound and Nothing – with verve and feeling. She’s clearly much at ease with these now-mandatory performance requirements of an author event, and had the room captivated (not always a given, as anyone who’s attended several author readings will know!). If you get the chance to hear her read from her work, grab it.

Clare’s somewhat nomadic life, reflected in her collection, where the stories roam the globe, made for an interesting contrast with Sarah, two out of whose three novels are set in the Cumbrian landscape she knows well. If you’ve ever read any of Sarah’s fierce, clever novels (and if not, you should) you won’t be surprised to discover that their marked intelligence is matched by the author herself. (She certainly made me feel wretchedly intellectually inferior, although I’m sure that was unintentional …)

With thoughtful questions met by thoughtful answers, ranging from a discussion of the feminism in their works to their attachment to Faber, it was the perfect start to a bookworm’s Easter weekend.