• Event location: Bridgewater pottery
  
• Please note this event costs £6 – book online here

in partnership with Hot Air Festival, Staffordshire University senior lecturer, Catherine Burgass, discusses Stoke’s most famous literary son, Arnold Bennett, whose ‘Five Towns’ novels both glorify and demonise the Potteries.

Anna of the Five Towns, for example, describes in lurid detail the conditions of pottery manufacture, as well as painting vivid pictures of Stoke’s industrial landscape. Catherine Burgass’s talk also focuses on other writers from the area who have taken their inspiration from Stoke’s industrial setting.