Join us for a conversation with author and journalist Mary O'Hara who will talk about her work on the stories we tell ourselves about poverty and share the perspectives of people who are living with the reality of poverty.

This is an opportunity to explore:

• Why did we stop caring about poverty?
• Why did we start blaming people in poverty for a social problem?
• Would reforms like basic income help end the stigma of poverty?
• How should we organise to challenge this injustice?

Mary O’Hara is an award winning journalist, author and producer. She works across a range of publications and platforms including The Guardian. Mary is author of the best-selling book Austerity Bites: A Journey to the Sharp End of Cuts in the UK (Policy Press, 2014) and The Shame Game: Overturning the toxic poverty narrative, (Policy Press, February 2020) and has been a contributor to numerous other books including The Violence of Austerity (Verso, 2018) and Council Skies (2019).

Mary directed and produced the documentary short, Beyond the Railings and has been the recipient of a number of prestigious domestic and international awards for her journalism including Mind Journalist of the Year and International Columnist of the Year 2020 at the Southern Calfornia Journalism Awards for her Guardian column, Lesson From America.

She is a consulting executive producer on the award-winning podcast Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness and is founder of the multi-platform anti-poverty storytelling intitiative, Project Twist-It (2018-ongoing), for which she has produced and directed multiple films, audio, events and podcasts with artists, writers and performers.

In 2009-2010 Mary was an Alistair Cooke Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley conducting research on press coverage of mental health and suicide. She is on the board of the charity, Arts Emergency and is the founder and chair of the David Nobbs Memorial Trust promoting new comedy writing talent.

**NB: This webinar will take place on Zoom - after registering you will receive a link to the session and further information. We will also be recording the webinar in order to share it more widely.