We’re delighted to be welcoming Laura Jean McKay to Manchester for the launch of GUNFLOWER – her new collection which is full of strange and funny stories, some speculative and some more realist, that explore our relationship with nature, the environment, and each other. Laura will be in conversation with Gregory Norminton.

Doors: 18.30, event starts: 18.45

Tickets are £3.00 or free when pre-ordering a copy of the book. GUNFLOWER will also be available to purchase on the night and Laura will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make the event, please contact us on 0161 274 3331 or manchester@blackwell.co.uk and we can arrange this for you.

About the book:

A family of cat farmers gets the chance to set the felines free. A group of chickens tells it like it is. A female-crewed ship ploughs through the patriarchy. A support group finds solace in a world without men.

With her trademark humour, energy, and flair, McKay offers glimpses of places where dreams subsume reality, where childhood restarts, where humans embrace their animal selves and animals talk like humans.

The stories in Gunflower explode and bloom in mesmerising ways, showing the world both as it is and as it could be.

About the author:

Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country (Scribe, 2020) ― winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Victorian Prize for Literature, and the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year, and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia (Black Inc., 2013). She was awarded the NZSA Waitangi Day Literary Honours in 2022.