As part of the Play on Words Festival with Speaker: Sophie Pierce

How do we survive the death of those we love and find joy after bereavement? In 2017, Sophie Pierce’s son Felix, who was 20, died suddenly and unexpectedly. Sophie’s memoir, The Green Hill: Letters to a Son, explores the huge impact of this loss, but it is also about renewal, hope, and the restorative power of the natural world. Effectively a love letter to Devon, the book celebrates the beauty of wild landscapes including Dartmoor, the Torbay coast, and the River Dart, and explores the solace they can give.

Sophie is a writer with a passionate interest in our emotional connection to natural landscapes. Her memoir, The Green Hill: Letters to a son (Unbound, March 2023), explores this in the context of traumatic bereavement.  Her next book will build on these ideas in relation to Dartmoor, the biggest wilderness in Southern England. Sophie’s essays have been published in The Clearing (Little Toller Books) and Caught by the River.   Sophie is also the co-author of four wild swimming guides (with Wild Things Publishing) with a fifth, Wild Swimming Walks Exmoor and North Devon, coming out in April 2024.  Until 2020 she was a radio and TV reporter for BBC South West, and had a varied career spanning over 20 years, covering stories on everything from natural disasters through to political scandals and skateboarding ducks. Genre: Memoir, Travel Writing.

Saturday 27 April, 3pm-4pm (please note new start time)