What does it take to be a successful novelist? Just what does it mean to lead a life in writing?

The Longer Read takes a career-wide look at the lives of authors, unpicking the techniques and habits that writers use in their everyday work. These in-conversation events are brought to you by the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, with a signing and bookstall by Blackwell’s Bookshop. Book your ticket here.

Alan Hollinghurst is a Gloucestershire novelist, poet and short story writer with numerous awards to his name, including the Somerset Maugham Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and, in 2004, the Man Booker Prize. He initially set out to be a short story writer, but quickly found his feet as with longer-form fiction.

His first novel was The Swimming-Pool Library in 1988, which paints a picture of London gay aristocratic life. His 2004 novel The Line of Beauty won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and was adapted for BBC Television.

His sixth and latest novel The Sparsholt Affair explores intimate relationships across three generations and was described by The Guardian as “the novel that other novelists were all talking about this year”.

“Hollinghurst is a master storyteller … thrilling in the rather awful way that the best Victorian novels are, so that one finds oneself galloping somewhat shamefacedly through the pages in order to discover what happens next.” (John Banville)

Doors 6.30pm. Event runs from 7pm-9pm including book signing. Entry is free – book your tickets here. Event location here.