Midland tells the stories of three young women as they fight to find their feet amidst the accumulated rubble of the twentieth century. From the bombsites of the 1940s to the construction sites of the 1960s and the school halls and decaying tower blocks of the 1980s, experimental writer Honor Gavin has created an ingenious narrative of one Midlands family that is also a startling, anarchic history of a city.

Joining Honor Gavin to launch this ground-breaking novel is Steven Camden (aka Polar Bear): a renowned spoken word artist and co-author of Build and Destroy, an exploration of the Brummie psyche.

The editors of three innovative publishers – Nine Arches, Influx and Penned in the Margins – will lead a discussion on writing about place, with a particular focus on Birmingham as England’s great, and often overlooked, second city.