Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts

Events Items

MY MIND TO ME A KINGDOM IS: Paul Stanbridge in conversation with Alex Pheby

Date/Time: NEW DATE! Friday 24th February, 7pm to 8pm

Venue: Culture Lab, Newcastle University

My Mind To Me A Kingdom Is (Galley Beggar Press, 2022) is a book bursting with knowledge. It is a novel about the joy of discovery, the beauty of the world, the rich, warm pulse of life. It is also a book about death.

In 2015, Paul’s brother took his own life, leaving behind pitifully few possessions and an irreducible complex of questions. In his search for answers, Paul discovers that facts can be the opposite of truth, and that to see something fully, we must sometimes look away. In the end, sifting through a chaos of fragmentary remains – both personal and historical – Paul begins to piece together a sense of the value of living, and to understand what cannot be known.

Paul Stanbridge grew up in Essex. Forbidden Line, his debut novel, was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott prize and won the inaugural Republic of Consciousness first novel prize. His Encyclopaedia of St Arbuc, available at www.st-arbuc.co.uk, has been described as ‘a work of jaw-dropping originality... immersive, compelling, frustrating, dazzlingly original and deeply unsettling’. My Mind To Me A Kingdom Is, described as ‘unforgettably beautiful’ in the Times Literary Supplement, is his second book.

Alex Pheby is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Free event, and all very welcome.

Please note this event is now running on Friday 24th February and not as previously advertised Thursday 23rd February.

Paul Stanbridge (c) Jamie Hammond