Described by Sally Rooney as “brilliant, funny and unsettling”, Open Up is a collection of five innovative stories by rising literary star Thomas Morris.

From a child attending his first football match, buoyed by secret magic, and a wincingly humane portrait of adolescence, to the perplexity of grief and loss through the eyes of a seahorse, Morris seeks to find grace, hope and benevolence in the churning tumult of self-discovery. Philosophically acute. Wincingly humane. Strikingly original. This outstanding suite of stories is bursting with a bracing emotional depth. Open Up cracks the heart as it expands the short story form.

Join us for what will be the first Welsh event for Open Up, in which Thomas will be in conversation with novelist Tessa Hadley.

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Thomas Morris is a writer and editor from Caerphilly. He currently lives in Dublin. Thomas’ debut story collection, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing (Faber & Faber, 2015) was chosen as a Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Observer, The Spectator, The Irish Times, and The Irish Independent, won the 2016 Wales Book of the Year, The Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award, and a Somerset Maugham Award. In 2023, Thomas was listed as one of the 20 Best Young British Novelists by Granta magazine.

Tessa Hadley has published eight novels and three short story collections for adults in her career. She was born in Bristol and now lives in Cardiff. Her novels have sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide and as of 2016 she is a professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University.