Fill 2023: Ties

(This is a past event and is no longer running)

Maria Grazia Calandrone & Hannah Lowe

Maria Grazia Calandrone and Hannah Lowe are poets and writers.

They both have a layered and complex relation with their mothers and fathers. How can parental love be found and told in the wake of trauma and absence?

In their applauded memoirs, Calandrone and Lowe have embarked on a lyrical and heartbreaking quest to discover who their mothers and fathers were and how their lives are still tied to them in their absence.

The event will feature some readings of unpublished material.

Chair: Giorgia Tolfo

This event is in English with translation.

Maria Grazia Calandrone is an Italian poet, writer, journalist and artist. She writes on the Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and organises poetry workshops in prisons. She has been awarded many prizes for her poetic production. The memoir Splendi come vita was longlisted for the Strega Prize in 2021. Her latest memoir  Dove non mi hai portata was published in 2022.

Hannah Lowe is a British writer and poet, known for her collection of poetry Chick (2013) and family memoir Long Time, No See (2015) and her research into the historicising of the Empire Windrush and postwar Caribbean migration to Britain. Her 2021 book The Kids won the Costa Book of the Year award.

Giorgia Tolfo is one of the co-founders of FILL, a writer and a researcher.