Memories of Lost Loved Ones

Cathy Rentzenbrink, Louisa Young, Georgina Godwin

How do you write about the loss of someone you loved? How do you find the necessary distance between yourself as a person and as a writer? Louisa Young and Cathy Renzenbrinck will discuss the challenges and rewards of writing about loss and love with Georgina Godwin. Cathy’s book The Last Act of Love was a Sunday Times Bestseller and Louisa’s new book You Left Early: a true story of love and alcohol is just published

‘Profoundly moving . . . The book’s real power lies in Rentzenbrink’s skill as a writer, her ability to unearth precise and agonising details quietly, with no self-pity or drama . . . it falls into a tradition of beautifully written accounts of grief, such as Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking . . . Rentzenbrink offers a message of enormous hope for anybody who is going through loss, grief or trauma . . . She emerges from this unflinching memoir with dignity, strength and an enormous heart’ 

Sunday Times

‘An extraordinarily candid bereavement memoir… As much as it’s an overwhelming love letter, Young’s book is also a sobering reminder of the devastating effects of alcoholism, not just on an individual’s life, but on everyone else around them’ 

Evening Standard

Cathy Rentzenbrink

Cathy Rentzenbrink was born in Cornwall, grew up in Yorkshire and lives in London, where she works as a writer and journalist. She is the author of A Manual For Heartache and the Sunday Times bestselling memoir The Last Act of Love, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize.

Louisa Young

Louisa Young was born in London and read history at Cambridge. She co-wrote the Lionboy series with her daughter, and is the author of eight further books including the bestselling My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award, and was a Richard and Judy Book Club choice, and its acclaimed sequels The Heroes’ Welcome and Devotion. Her work is published in 36 languages. She lives in London.

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