Free for all, thanks to generous support from Hawthornden Charitable Trust. Register to be sent a link to view the event whenever you like, wherever you are. You will receive a 'watch link' in your inbox as soon as the event is published via our US partners at Literary Hub - a little treat from the RSL to you.

This year’s Hawthornden event sees American writers including Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Dirda explore the work and influence of Aldous Huxley. Join us to hear from some of the leading voices in modern speculative fiction on the place of dystopia today, as we clamber into our own ‘brave new world’.

Huxley was acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and elected Companion of Literature by the RSL in 1962.

Despite having written over fifty books, his novels, works of non-fiction, essays and poems are often overshadowed by Huxley’s classic work of speculative fiction, Brave New World. As well as a celebration of these lesser-known titles, the discussion will celebrate the power of words to traverse seas and the transformative potential of kinship with writers across generations and literary forms.

This event is generously sponsored by the Hawthornden Literary Retreat. The annual Hawthornden event celebrates the mutual influence of British and American writers on one another.

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of Victories Greater Than Death, the first book in a new young adult trilogy, which came out in April 2021. Up next: Never Say You Can’t Survive, a book about how to use creative writing to get through hard times; and a short story collection called Even Greater Mistakes. Her other books include The City in the Middle of the Night and All the Birds in the Sky. Her fiction and journalism have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, McSweeney's, Mother Jones, the Boston Review, Tor.com, Tin House, Teen Vogue, Conjunctions, Wired Magazine, and other places. Her TED Talk, 'Go Ahead, Dream About the Future' got 700,000 views in its first week. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast 'Our Opinions Are Correct.'

Michael Dirda is a weekly book columnist for The Washington Post as well as a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and many other periodicals. He is the author of a memoir, five collections of essays, and a prize-winning book about Arthur Conan Doyle. Dirda graduated with Highest Honors in English from Oberlin College and received a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell University. He was awarded the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for criticism.

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