Fact vs Fiction: Louise Doughty & Jill Dawson

Louise Doughty and Jill Dawson are in conversation at The Enterprise Centre UEA on Saturday 24 October, with Dr Katherine Cooper chairing. It's part of the Norwich Book Festival 2026, which runs from 24 to 30 October, so this is one of the opening sessions of the week.

Both are among the UK's most acclaimed contemporary writers, with award-winning and bestselling novels spanning more than thirty years. Jill Dawson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a former Creative Writing Fellow at UEA, known for novels about real people: The Crime Writer follows Patricia Highsmith, and her latest, Pixie, is about the illustrator of the world's most famous Tarot deck. She's also a certified Jungian tarot reader and founded the Gold Dust writers' mentoring scheme in 2008.

Louise Doughty has written ten novels, including the number-one bestseller Apple Tree Yard, which was adapted as a BBC One miniseries starring Emily Watson. She also wrote the memoir On This Spot Fell One Tear of Love, about her parents' secret 1950s love affair; her work has been translated into thirty languages. They're joined by Dr Katherine Cooper, a writer, researcher and academic, and a BBC New Generation Thinker.

The conversation will cover their books, their writing processes and their lives. It runs from 6.30pm to 7.30pm at The Enterprise Centre UEA, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ. Tickets are £15 standard and £6 for students.