Name: Novelists on Windrush Day at Waterstones Piccadilly
Start: 2025-06-25T18:30:00+01:00
End: 2025-06-25T19:30:00+01:00
Location: Waterstones

Novelists on Windrush Day at Waterstones Piccadilly

Alongside Hachette UK’s THRIVE Network and Dialogue, we're delighted to host novelists Mel Pennant and Lisa Smith and Patrick Vernon OBE
About this Event

Alongside Hachette UK’s THRIVE Network and Dialogue, we're delighted to host novelists Mel Pennant and Lisa Smith and Windrush campaigner Patrick Vernon OBE for an insightful and thoughtful discussion centred on Windrush Day. In conversation with award-winning journalist Kuba Shand-Baptiste, they will draw on their lived experiences as well as those of relatives and friends to show how they have been inspired in their work and their writings by the Windrush Generation.

PATRICK VERNON OBE is a Clore and Winston Churchill Fellow, a fellow at the Imperial War Museum, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a former associate fellow for the Department of the History of Medicine at Warwick University. Patrick was awarded an OBE in 2012 for his work in tackling health inequalities for ethnic minority communities in Britain. Since 2010 he has been leading the campaign for Windrush Day and in 2018 kick-started the campaign for an amnesty for the Windrush Generation as part of the Windrush Scandal which led to a government U-turn in immigration policy.

MEL PENNANT is an award-winning playwright whose work has appeared in the National Archives, as well as on stage. Born in London, she was raised by an extraordinary village, which included her Jamaican grandparents who moved to England in the 1950s as part of the Windrush generation. Mel is drawn to stories that explore what's hidden below the surface and celebrate the richness and strength of tight-knit communities. She lives in London with her family and their dog, Bleu. A M**der for Miss Hortense is Mel's first novel and she is currently writing another mystery starring Miss Hortense.

LISA SMITH is a writer from South London born to Caribbean parents. She has an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she won the Pat Kavanagh Prize in 2019. Her short story Auld Lang Syne won the 2017 Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize and in 2020 she was selected to join the London Library Emerging Writers Programme. Jamaica Road is her first novel.