Caitlin Moran on How to Be Hopeful

Caitlin Moran is at The RSA on Thursday 29 October, talking about her new book How to Be Hopeful. It's a Between the Lines conversation, so rather than a formal reading, it's a discussion about the book, followed by a signing.

How to Be Hopeful is a funny, candid and deeply personal look at choosing hope when the world gives plenty of reasons not to. Moran describes reaching what she calls 'Peak Despair', and from there she set herself a year-long experiment in everyday action: she stepped back from social media and rolling news, reconnected with her community, picked litter, donated blood and rewilded her garden. The book tells what happened next, and her discovery that hope isn't something we wait to feel, but something we can practise through attention, connection and small acts.

For context, Moran is the eldest of eight children, home-educated on a council estate in Wolverhampton. She published her first novel at 16 and became a columnist at The Times at 18, where she won Columnist of the Year seven times. Her feminist memoir How to Be a Woman was voted one of the Sunday Times' 'Most Important Books of the Twenty-First Century', and she adapted How To Build A Girl into a 2020 film. She lives in North London with her husband and two children.

The talk runs from 6:30pm to 7:30pm at RSA House, 8 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ, and it's also available online via YouTube. Entry is free, and there's a book signing afterwards if you're there in person.