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Rebecca Solnit is the author of thirteen books, including ‘A Field Guide to Getting Lost’ (Penguin) and ‘Wanderlust: A History of Walking’ (Verso). She is a Guggenheim fellow and a recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Rebecca  reads from her latest book ‘The Faraway Nearby’ (Granta), an anti-memoir sparked by a rather unusual inheritance. The book is a Russian doll of stories within stories, studded with ice, mirrors and apricots. Rebecca joins us from San Francisco to tell us why sometimes the questions are better than the answers.

SJ Fowler has published four poetry collections, the latest of which is ‘Recipes’ (Red Ceilings Press). He is the editor of VLAK Magazine and the poetry editor at 3am. He’s currently working on a PhD focusing on early 20th Century Avant Garde poetry, which has fed into his work with Electronic Voice Phenomena, an experimental literature and new media project by Mercy and Penned in the Margins. Taking Electronic Voice Phenomena as its starting point, the project has commissioned work from Hanna Silva, Ross Sutherland and Outfit as well as SJ Fowler, who performs an extract from his piece and explains the connections between Electronic Voice Phenomena and Dada. Electronic Voice Phenomena is on tour in May.

Richard J Williams is Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures at the University of Edinburgh. He write about cities, particularly modernism, urban regeneration and the place of culture. His latest book, ‘Sex and Buildings’ (Reaktion Books), explores the subtle stories that these structures tell about our sexual lives and the lives they seem to promise. Part architectural history, part cultural history, and part travelogue, Richard tells us how it all began with a mid-life crisis.  

Born Rosalind Leyden in Winchester, Rozi moved to Bristol, and worked on the ferries whilst making home recordings. After catching the ear of Fence Records, Rozi has performed on various Fence Collective compilations and supported previous Verb guest James Yorkston. Not content to have just her own band, Rozi also plays with This Is The Kit. Rozi’s style consists of spare vocals and finger-picked guitar, and her sound is beguiling. Rozi performs ‘Humans’ and ‘?’ from her latest album Joined Sometimes Unjoined  (Fence Recordings).