What the Wild Does to Us: Nick Acheson and Harriet Mead in conversation

Nick Acheson and Harriet Mead are in conversation at The Forum on Friday 30 October, from 6 pm to 7 pm. It's part of the Norwich Book Festival, and the whole thing runs for about an hour. The talk is titled What the Wild Does to Us, and it brings together two people who've spent the last few years looking at the same thing from very different angles.

Nick Acheson is a Norfolk Wildlife Trust Ambassador who's written a column for Norfolk Magazine for more than a decade, championing the county's wildlife. In spring 2026, to mark the Trust's centenary, sixty of those articles were gathered into This Wild Dream. He's also worked with the Society of Wildlife Artists at Massingham Heath, where from 2025 to 2026 more than thirty artists documented the restoration of 900 acres of biodiverse grassland in This Healing Heath. Harriet Mead is the President of the Society of Wildlife Artists, and she approaches the natural world through paint and line, while Acheson works through language. Together they'll talk about nature restoration in Norfolk and why the living world needs to be captured in art, words and song.

It's a conversation between a writer and a painter about the same landscape, so it should be an interesting way to see how two different ways of working can end up in the same place. If you've followed Acheson's column over the years, this is a good chance to hear him talk through it in person. Both of their books will be available to buy on the night, so you can take them home with you.

Tickets go from £8.92 to £13.18 via Eventbrite, and there's a Supporter ticket available with the income going to Norfolk Wildlife Trust. It's in The Gallery at The Forum, Millennium Plain, NR2 1TF, on Friday 30 October, 6 pm to 7 pm.