Costa Book Awards Shortlist Evening

Book your tickets to join us as we celebrate the Costa Book Awards 2015 at this special evening event for book lovers. The Costa Book Awards are split into five categories: novel, first novel, biography, poetry and children's book. Don’t miss it as our panel chat about the category winning books in the running for the overall award, plus awards and writing in general – including their own!  

Our exciting panel features: 

Kim Slater – a writer whose debut young adult novel Smart has now been nominated for a staggering 18 awards, including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. In 2015, Smart won The Leeds Book Award, The St Helen's Book Award (BASH), The Tower Hamlets Book Award and the EMBA Geoffrey Trease Children's Book Award. 

Jonathan Taylor – is a novelist, poet, memoirist and lecturer in creative writing. His novel Entertaining Strangers was shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award and longlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize. His new book Melissa tells the story of a small street where a young girl dies of leukemia; and at almost the same moment, everyone on the street experiences the same musical hallucination. 

Aly Stoneman is a poet, arts project coordinator and Poetry Editor at Leftlion Magazine. A commissioned poet for Lyric Lounge and Guardian Award-winning project 'Dawn of The Unread', she won the Buxton Poetry Prize in 2015 and has performed at many literary events including Copenhagen International Poetry Festival. Her pamphlet, Lost Lands, was published in 2012 by Crystal Clear Creators. 

Sheelagh Gallagher – our host for the evening has led and appeared on many reading-related panel discussions. The Former Reading & Literature Development lead for Nottinghamshire recently initiated the publication of These Seven – a collection of stories by Nottingham writers - as part of Nottingham City of Literature. 

The overall winner of the Costa Book Awards will be announced on 26 January.

An entertaining evening book lovers won't want to miss!