As part of the Play on Words Festival with Speakers: Matt Newbury and Sophie Pierce

Join Matt Newbury and Sophie Pierce, the authors of the best-selling Wild Swimming Walks series, as they take you on an aquatic journey through the South West’s most beautiful places. They’ll be talking about their many adventures – from the sublime to the ridiculous – and showing a series of stunning images which celebrate the beauty of immersing in Britain’s incredible watery landscapes. They will also be chatting about their latest publications – Wild Swimming Torbay and Wild Swimming Walks Exmoor and North Devon. Genre: Travel Writing.

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. Matt is an author, event manager and the Creative Director of the Agatha Christie Festival. His swimming challenges include escaping from Alcatraz, swimming from Sicily to mainland Italy, swimming to the Isle of Wight and most recently swimming through shark infested waters from Robben Island to Cape Town. He has also competed in several ice swimming competitions, usually coming last. As well as writing books about swimming, he is also the author of Agatha Christie’s Devon and the upcoming Daphne du Maurier’s Cornwall.

Saturday 27 April, 12pm – 1pm