The Goldsmiths Writers’ Centre Presents: Amy Arnold, twice shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize, in conversation with Dr Tom Lee

The Goldsmiths Writers’ Centre in association with the New Statesman presents Amy Arnold, twice shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize, in conversation with Dr Tom Lee.

AMY ARNOLD lives in Cumbria. She has degrees in Music and Psychology, and studied postgraduate Neuropsychology at Birmingham University. She’s worked as a university lecturer, teacher and swede packer. Her debut novel, Slip of a Fish, won the 2018 Northern Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2019 Goldsmiths Prize.

ABOUT LORI & JOE: Lori and Joe have lived in the Lake District for many years, in a quiet valley where one day is much like another. Bringing Joe his regular cup of coffee one morning, Lori finds him dead. She could call an ambulance, but what difference would it make? Instead, she heads out for a walk over the fells. As she makes her way through the November fog, Lori’s thoughts slip between past and present, revealing a marriage marked by isolation, childlessness and a terrible secret she’s never disclosed. Taking place over the course of a single day, yet recounting a discordant relationship of many decades, Lori & Joe is an intimate and compelling story of entrapment and loneliness, and of a life in which desire is continually overcome by inertia: nothing changes and nothing is ever (re)solved.

‘Written in prose of astonishing musicality and resonance, Lori & Joe captures precisely the ebb and flow of a woman’s thoughts as she walks the Cumbrian fells following her husband’s sudden death. At first a seemingly quiet and meditative novel, the story that unfolds is anything but quiet – an unforgettable and devastating portrait of regret, secrets and harm amid a landscape of haunting beauty.’ – Dr Tom Lee, Chair of Judges