Climbing Days is forgotten classic of 1920s mountaineering literature by Dorothy Pilley, which broke new ground for women in a sport dominated by men. Join Pilley's great-great nephew, Dan Richards, as he unpacks this daredevil tale of adventure, near-death slips and rapturous achievement in high places.
Dan will be in conversation with Rozie Kelly at the Calderdale Industrial Museum. There will be a short reading, a discussion, audience Q&A and book signing.
About the book:
When Dorothy Pilley first began climbing in the 1910s, female mountaineers were seen as a dangerous liability, their achievements ignored, unrecorded or disbelieved. Undeterred, Dorothy proved herself on the vertiginous slopes of Wales, Scotland and the Lake District before tackling rock faces in the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rockies, Mount Fuji and the Himalayas. Her tireless tireless championing of fellow women climbers and her own trailblazing example helped establish female alpinists as serious mountaineers with impressive records on bravery, skill and endurance.
About the writers:
Dorothy Pilley (1894–1986) was a trailblazing writer and mountaineer who led the way for women’s climbing and co-founded the Pinnacle Club for women in 1921. She climbed ridges and sheer faces around the world, creating a legacy that is admired to this day.
Dan Richards is the co-author of Holloway (with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood), and the author of The Beechwood Airship Interviews, Climbing Days (a biography of the amazing life and climbs of his great grand aunt, Dorothy Pilley), and Outpost. He has written for the Guardian, Economist, Esquire, Monocle, Caught by the River. Dan teaches creative non-fiction at the National Centre for Writing and Arvon Foundation. His next book, Overnight, is set to be published in March 2025.
Rozie Kelly is a prose writer based in West Yorkshire. Her current work-in-progress, Salt Tooth, was shortlisted for the PFD Queer Fiction Prize 2023. She is one of the eight participants in the inaugural 2024 Prototype Development Programme, a new scheme offering extended support and career development to eight emerging writers and artists in partnership between Prototype Publishing and New Writing North. Rozie is the recipient of the 2023 Northbound Book Award, produced by New Writing North, The University of York and Saraband, and her debut novel Kingfisher will be published by Saraband in 2025.
