Paul Scraton and Adam Scovell

Paul Scraton - In the Pines

In the Pines is author Paul Scraton's story of an unnamed narrator's lifelong relationship with the forest and the mysteries it contains, told through fragmented stories that capture the blurred details and sharp focus of memory.

Accompanied by eerie images created using a 170-year-old technique of collodion wet plate photography by Eymelt Sehmer, In the Pines is a powerfully evocative collaboration between image and text.

Adam Scovell - Nettles

It is the first day of term at a secondary school on Merseyside, 2001. The Towers are soon to fall. A boy cowers in an alleyway, surrounded by a group clad in black. They whip his bare legs with nettles. This is only the start. As term unfolds, their bullying campaign intensifies. Soon the boy finds solace hiding in marshland under the nearby motorway. Voices there urge council with Grannies Rock, a strange stone that sits on derelict land known as The Breck. There, the whispers in the breeze promise a terrible revenge. Twenty years later, the boy has grown. He is back home from London to pack his away his childhood. Armed with a Polaroid camera, he aims to exorcise those painful memories through a series of photographs. But is his memory of what happened reliable? Nettles is a powerful exploration of memory and violence, excavating the stories we tell ourselves to escape our past.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/paul-scraton-in-the-pines-and-adam-scovell-nettles-in-conversation-tickets-301355030007

Tickets are £3 or free when purchasing a copy of either book. IN THE PINES and NETTLES will also be available to purchase on the night and Paul and Adam will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make the event, please contact Blackwells on 0161 274 3331 or manchester@blackwell.co.uk and they can arrange this for you.