Michael J. Warren is an author, medievalist and naturalist. He teaches English in Chelmsford, was honorary research fellow at Birkbeck College, chair of the steering group for New Networks for Nature and is currently a trustee for Curlew Action.

Michael curates The Birds and Place Project, a website devoted to collecting and recording the birds of English place names. Previously he taught English at Cranbrook School and spent time walking the marshes and bird habitats of the southeast. His latest book is The Cuckoo’s Lea, published by Bloomsbury. Birds have long inspired our emotional and imaginative connections to physical environments, but where did it all begin? Hidden in the names of English towns and villages, fields, lanes and hills, are the ghostly traces of birds conjuring powerful identities for people in ancient landscapes. What are their stories and secrets? Weaving together early literature, history and ornithology, this book takes readers on a journey far into the past to contemplate the nature of place.

Alex Preston lives in Kent. He is the prizewinning author of four novels including the bestselling Winchelsea. He writes for The Telegraph, The Economist and Harper’s Bazaar and reviews books for the Observer’s New Review. He co-founded the Corfu Literary Festival and is patron of Oxford and Wealden Literary Festivals. His book As Kingfishers Catch Fire: Books and Birds is his own personal anthology of nature

writing that brought the birds of his childhood back to brilliant life. Alex weaves the very best writing about birds into a personal and eccentric narrative that is as much about the joy of reading and writing as it is about the thrill of wildlife.

Alex and Michael will be in conversation about their shared love of birds, nature and literature.