5 Speakers, 15 Minutes Each - November 2022

Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of ten novels, including The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and has been named as the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York. His new book, A Guest at the Feast, brings together essays about growing up in Ireland during radical change; about cancer, priests, popes, homosexuality, and literature.

Raynor Winn’s new memoir Landlines is a story that begins in fear but ends in hope. As the health of Moth, Winn’s husband, declines, the couple set out to walk the gruelling, remote and stunningly beautiful terrain of Scotland’s Cape Wrath Trail, reflecting on community and the environment along the way. Raynor is the bestselling author of the astonishing, multi-award-winning The Salt Path - released in 2019 - which told the story of another remarkable journey, when nature saved the couple once before. Just days after Raynor learnt that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, was terminally ill, their home was taken away and they lost their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they made the impulsive, brave decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. 'You feel the world is a better place because Raynor and Moth are in it' - The Times

Gail Whiteman is an expert on global risk arising from the systemic changes occurring in the natural environment. She is Professor of Sustainability at the University of Exeter’s Business School and founder of Arctic Basecamp, a team of Arctic experts and scientists who, for the last five years, have brought their Arctic-based research to the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos. In so doing, their aim is to call for action from global leaders to apply responsive and responsible leadership to address global risks from Arctic change.

Guy Shrubsole is a writer and environmental campaigner. He has worked for Rewilding Britain, Friends of the Earth, the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and New Zealand’s Ministry of Agriculture. He has written widely for publications including the Guardian and New Statesman. His first book, Who Owns England?, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller.