Maureen Duffy is a playwright, poet, novelist and biographer, her output totalling some 34 published works to date. This event will explore her part in the fabric of King’s, from her time as an undergraduate in the fifties, through her fabrication of King’s as ‘Queen’s’ College London in her novel Capital (1975), the donation of her archive to the university and to the biographical window on the Strand dedicated to her achievements in 2013.

Katie Webb will talk about the process of archiving her work, which started in the 1970s and is experiencing a resurgence in attention through the conference held at King’s in 2013 to celebrate Duffy’s life, writing and 80th birthday.

Duffy will share reminiscences, readings, reflections, and creative responses to the themes of ‘fabric’ and ‘fabrication’, shedding light on the literary history of King’s, her own place on the Strand and how she has drawn upon it through her own poetry.

The event will also feature artist Liz Mathews who fabricated Duffy’s latest collection, Songs for Sappho, as an artist’s book installation, Paper Wings, in which Duffy’s poems were turned into calligraphic illustration on pages of handmade paper.

How do fact and fiction continue to weave the fabric of Maureen Duffy’s remarkable career? What answers can be found in the archive? Through biography, history, life writing and the materials they are made from, this event will explore what Maureen Duffy has fabricated out of King’s and what we might fabricate in turn.

Adding its own unique fabrication to the event, a limited edition of tea towels printed with a piece of materially-themed poetry by Maureen Duffy will be available to buy. Signed copies of her latest books will also be on sale.

Maureen Duffy is the author of 34 published works of fiction, including 6 collections of poetry, non-fiction, and 16 plays for stage, screen and radio, the most recent being her novel In Times Like These. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of King’s College London, and a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature, as well as President of Honour of the British Copyright Council and Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, and a CISAC gold medallist. She was recently awarded a D. Litt by Loughborough University for contributions to literature and equality law reform.

Liz Mathews, lettering artist and studio potter, works in clay, handmade papers, Thames driftwood and found materials - mixing inks with wine, honey, blood, snowmelt, river-water, clay-slip, salt, charcoal - and lettering with unconventional mark-making tools: clothes-pegs, chopsticks, slate-shards, feathers and driftwood sticks. Her artist's books are in public collections including the Poetry Library, the National Library of Scotland and the British Library: her 17m long book/sculpture Thames to Dunkirk was a key piece in their London 2012 exhibition Writing Britain. In her artist's book/installation Paper Wings, (2014) she set to paper a cycle of 55 love-poems by Maureen Duffy.

Katie Webb graduated from King’s in 2010 with an MA in Medieval English: Sex, Gender, Culture, and then in 2014 with a Diploma in EU, UK and US Copyright Law. With Maureen Duffy, Katie has been responsible for establishing and running the International Authors Forum, an initiative to ensure authors’ rights and interests are represented worldwide.