Guests

Dr Simon Grennan

Simon is author of A Theory of Narrative Drawing (Palgrave Macmillan 2017) and Dispossession (one of The Guardian Books of the Year 2015), a graphic adaptation of a novel by Anthony Trollope (Jonathan Cape and Les Impressions Nouvelles 2015). He is co-author, with Roger Sabin and Julian Waite, of Marie Duval: Maverick Victorian Cartoonist (Manchester University Press 2019), Marie Duval (Myriad 2018) and The Marie Duval Archive and co-editor, with Laurence Grove, of Transforming Anthony Trollope: ‘Dispossession’, Victorianism and 19th century word and image (Leuven University Press 2015). Since 1990, he has been half of international artists team Grennan & Sperandio, producer of over forty comics and books. For further information please see: www.simongrennan.com.

Val McDermid

Dubbed the Queen of Crime, Val McDermid has sold over 17 million books to date across the globe and is translated into more than 40 languages. She is perhaps best-known for her Wire in the Blood series, featuring clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan, which was adapted for television starring Robson Green and Hermione Norris. She has written three other series: private detective Kate Brannigan, journalist Lindsay Gordon and, most recently, cold case detective Karen Pirie, whose debut appearance in The Distant Echo is soon to become a major ITV series. She has also published several award- winning standalone novels, books of non-fiction, short story collections and a children’s picture book, My Granny is a Pirate. For further information please see: www.valmcdermid.com.