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Join Matilda Leyser as she discusses her retelling of the Persephone myth, No Season but the Summer, split between Oxfordshire and the Underworld, in conversation with Elizabeth Garner.

'What a wonderful writer. Matilda Leyser’s work is precise, poetic, hard-edged, rhythmical. It seethes with life, and feels both ancient and brand new' – David Almond

One Spring Persephone returns to the earth’s surface to find a natural world under attack and her mother, Demeter, powerless to protect it. While Demeter tries to regain her powers and fend off her daughter’s husband, who wants to drag his queen back underground for good, Persephone finally gets a taste of freedom, joining a group of climate protestors and realising that there are choices she can make for herself. But what will these choices mean for her mother, her husband, and for the new shoots of life inside her?

Matilda Leyser read English Literature at King’s College, London and then ran away to join the circus. She trained as an aerialist. After ten years in the air, she decided to come down to earth and take up the far more dangerous act of writing on the ground.

Tickets are £5 including a glass of wine or soft drink, book online or in the shop.

For tickets and more information, visit the event website here.