Beth Underdown (National Trust)

As part of a National Trust writer’s residency at Quarry Bank, Beth Underdown was commissioned to write a series of short texts responding to the Lost Voices exhibition marking the centenary of partial women’s suffrage. The resulting work, Love makes as many, was performed at part of a promenade event at Quarry Bank on 6 October and at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation on 16 October as part of the 2018 Manchester Literature Festival.

Beth Underdown was born in Rochdale in 1987. She studied at the University of York and then the University of Manchester, where she is now a Lecturer in Creative Writing. Her debut novel, The Witchfinder's Sister, was published in 2017, was a Richard and Judy bestseller and won the HWA Goldsboro Crown Debut Award. Her second novel, The Key in the Lock, was published in 2022 and described by Stuart Turton as 'the perfect gothic novel. It has secrets, guilt, brilliant characters, and a grand old house built on a terrible past. An absolute corker.'

You can download a PDF of the stories.