Please join us for our latest Writers in Conversation event, featuring two authors discussing their recent publications. St Hugh’s alumna Lucy Ashe (English Literature, 2007) and Joanna Miller will explore the process of writing fiction in conversation with Professor Nicholas Perkins.
Lucy Ashe trained at the Royal Ballet School before changing course to study English Literature at St Hugh’s College, where she graduated in 2010. She later qualified as an English and Drama teacher. Her first two novels, Clara & Olivia and The Sleeping Beauties, were inspired by her years immersed in the world of classical dance. The Model Patient marks an evolution in her work, drawing on her personal experience as a therapy patient to explore the psychology of power, trust, and self-erasure. Ashe lives in Brooklyn, New York.
The Model Patient
In 1960s London, a former fashion model turned housewife develops a dangerous obsession with her psychotherapist. In the quiet hush of her therapist’s office, Evelyn Westbrook’s life begins to unravel. Whether Dr Daley’s treatment of her is a form of care or manipulation, she cannot understand.
Exploring power dynamics in therapy, the early years of the contraceptive pill, and the transitional time between the conservatism of the 1950s and the liberalism of the Swinging Sixties, The Model Patient is a taut psychological novel about identity, power, and the cost of playing the roles we never chose.
Joanna Miller…
The Eights
Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight of St Hugh’s College.
But Oxford’s dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: misogyny is rife, influenza remains a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are very real indeed. As the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship becomes more important than ever.
Venue: Mordan Hall
Time: 5:15pm
Refreshments will be provided.
Register Here