Creative Minds at Birmingham - Bernard MacLaverty

Creative Minds at Birmingham, the School of EDACS Writers & Artists Distinguished Speaker Series, will welcome writer Bernard MacLaverty on November 21 at 17.15 where he will speak and read from his collections of works at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts. Bernard MacLaverty was born in Belfast and lived there until 1975 when he moved to Scotland with his wife, Madeline, and four children. He has been a Medical Laboratory Technician, a mature student, a teacher of English and, for two years in the mid-eighties, Writer-in-Residence at the University of Aberdeen. After living for a time in Edinburgh and the Isle of Islay he now lives in Glasgow. He is a member of Aosdana in Ireland and is Visiting Writer/Professor at the University of Strathclyde. Currently he is employed as a teacher of creative writing on a postgraduate course in prose fiction run by the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. Since the publication of Secrets and Other Stories in 1977, Bernard MacLaverty has been celebrated as one of the finest living short-story writers. Writing in the New York Times, William Boyd summoned the shades of Yeats, Joyce and Flann O'Brien, insisting that 'MacLaverty sits perfectly comfortably' in their company. The Guardian simply said 'MacLaverty is a master.' The Collected Short Stories (released November 14 2013) includes most of Secrets, A Time to Dance, The Great Profundo, Walking the Dog and Matters of Life & Death.

Cost: Free to staff and students, £6 to general public