09/05/2026
I hope you have all been enjoying the sunshine🌞🌞🌞🌞
This Tuesday, the 12th of May, Hampshire Writers' Society presents:
Perspectives on Historical Fiction
We are excited to be welcoming Alice Jolly as a returning speaker, and Stephen Hodgson.
A brief note on the guests:
Alice Jolly will be speaking to "The Challenges of Hindsight in Historical Fiction.”
Alice's new novel The Matchbox Girl was published by Bloomsbury in November 2025 and has been long-listed for the Walter Scott Prize. Here, she uses the voice of a twelve-year-old girl who struggles to understand the rise of fascism in 1930s Austria; she interpolates, as well, the histories of Dr Hans Asperger and his colleagues during World War II and after. She will discuss the decisions she made in plotting this novel with the benefits —or challenges—of hindsight, commenting on how such decisions might assist other writers, not just of historical fiction.
Alice is a novelist, dramatist, short story writer and a memoirist. She taught fiction at Oxford University for 16 years. She has won the Ackerley Prize for memoir and the V.S. Pritchett Prize, awarded by The Royal Society of Literature, for one of her short stories.
Stephen Hodgson will be presenting 'Helen and Lysander in Sparta.’
Stephen is our guest speaker, speaking about life in ancient Sparta and focusing on the experience of children growing up there. He will give an overview of his historical novel The Adventures of Helen and Lysander about a sister and a brother and their experiences of the Spartan education programme, the agoge. He is a new author: The Tales of Helen and Lysander is his first novel, the first in a series he intends to write about these characters, which will follow them on their path into adulthood. He recently had two short stories published in the Paul Cave Prize for Literature 2023.
All are welcome.
Admission £10; £2 for students (free for HWS members).
No advance booking is necessary.
We hope to see you there!
