Breaking the Mould - Granta panel

Join three acclaimed authors Holly Pester, Ben Pester, and Rebecca Perry as they discuss their individual and shared writing processes

Breaking the Mould
Holly Pester, Ben Pester, Rebecca Perry

Saturday 13 June 2026, 2.30pm - 3.30pm

Lakeside Theatre, University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ

Granta Books is renowned for championing challenging and innovative ground-breaking literature. Join three acclaimed Granta authors Holly Pester, Ben Pester, and Rebecca Perry as they discuss their individual and shared writing processes.

Tickets: £8 / £5 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)

This event is part of The Writers Room

Essex Book Festival and the University of Essex are hosting an exciting 1-day programme of writers’ and writing events. Events include author talks and workshops, multi-genre panel discussions, and The Pitch (a 10-minute speed-date with an industry professional). Plus, an opportunity to engage with and explore the J.A. Baker Archive.

The Writers Room Day Pass

Five events for £25 / £15 concessions

1. What it takes to Make a Book - Eva Verde in conversation with Sabah Khan

2. Nature Memoir: What Next? - James Canton

3. Breaking the Mould - Holly Pester, Ben Pester and Rebecca Perry

4. Freedom to Write, Freedom to Read - English PEN

5. How to Become a Peregrine - The Cabinet of Living Cinema

Book a Writers Room Day Pass here

The Lodgers by Holly Pester

'What it said to me was that I was here again, I was back, back from the great nowhere of somewhere else, returned, all too officially, to the whereabouts of Moffa.'

After a year away, a woman arrives back in her hometown to keep an eye on her wayward mother, Moffa. Living in a precarious sub-let, she is always on edge, anticipating a visit from the landlord or the arrival of the other resident. But her thoughts also drift back to the rented room she has just left, now occupied by a new lodger she has never met, but whose imagined navigations within the house and home become her fascination.

The minor dramas of temporary living are prised open and ransacked in Holly Pester's irreverent reckoning with those who house us. This is a story about what it means to live and love within and outside of family structures. It is also a stunning first novel from a writer already hailed as one of the best poets of her generation.

The Expansion Project by Ben Pester

Shortlisted for the Nero Debut Fiction Award 2025

Plans for the expansion of the Capmeadow Business Park are in full swing - its mission is to become the greatest business park in the region. Tom Crowley, a mid-level employee, loses his daughter at 'bring your daughter to work day'. He raises the alarm, and his colleagues rush to help him find her. Eventually, after no sign of her is found, it transpires she was never there. And yet, as time goes on, Tom still cannot reconcile that she is really at home. Refusing to accept that she is safe, Tom continues to search for her in the maze of corridors and impossible multi-dimensional spaces that make up his place of work...

Because Capmeadow is expanding in unexpected ways, a Liaison Officer becomes the central focus for complaints about how the expansion is impacting the lives of the employees - unexpected buildings, years-long business days, cursed farmers' markets, and corridors of the mind are draining the life from Tom and everyone he works with.

Years pass, and Tom remains at the company, convinced he is in the presence of his now adult daughter. But has he judged it correctly? And can anything go back to the way it was??

May we Feed the King by Rebecca Perry

She is a curator, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. But in the lush private quarters of a medieval palace, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur.

He is a reluctant ruler with no hunger for power, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his older brothers. But it isn't long before whispers begin to fly around the court. And with the growing belief that the King is not fit for the throne comes the idea that another might rule in his stead.

May We Feed the King dances between the lives of a historical subject who risks the future of his kingdom and a woman who turns to the past to hide from her present. Laced with desire and longing, it is a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling: on what makes a King 'Great', and a life meaningful.