Public Lecture: Dr Lucy Burns, 'Writing Abortion: Reflections on Larger than an Orange'

with Dr Lucy Burns

This event is hosted in collaboration with the Feminist Thinking Seminars, organised by students reading for the MSt in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies programme. Lucy Burns will also deliver a masterclass—'Writing Shame: Navel Gazing, Subversion, and Subterfuge’—on Tuesday, 25th February, at 2 pm. Further details are available here.

In her award-winning debut, Larger than an Orange (Chatto & Windus, 2021), Lucy Burns interweaves diary entries, poetic prose, and literary fragments to document her experience of undergoing an abortion. The book spans the days leading up to the procedure and the months following, capturing this life event's physical, emotional, and psychological complexities while remaining resolutely pro-choice.

A visceral account of an abortion that is praiseworthy not only for the conversations it will spark, but for its beautiful prose, emotional intensity and unabashed complexity... although there is no happy ending, the book's very existence is hopeful. The point is to start a conversation—and Larger Than an Orange will certainly do that.

—Laura Hackett, The Sunday Times

Four years after the publication of her experimental memoir, Larger than an Orange (Chatto & Windus, 2021), Lucy Burns revisits the ethical complexities of writing and publishing the book – and explores some of the unique challenges of writing about abortion.

Speaker Details:

Lucy Burns (she/her) is a Senior Lecturer in Prose at Liverpool John Moores University. Her first book, Larger than an Orange, was published by Chatto & Windus in 2021. It was named a 2021 Sunday Times Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the 2022 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. Lucy is currently working on a creative non-fiction book about the US liberal arts college, Black Mountain College.

Further Details and Contacts:

This in-person event is free and open to all; however, registration is recommended. This event will not be recorded. 

After the event, join us for a complimentary wine reception.

Any queries regarding this event should be addressed to OCLW Events Manager, Dr Eleri Anona Watson.