Ashley Hickson-Lovence: Ireland, Writing as Music and Making Life Your Book Club

Ashley Hickson-Lovence is a novelist, poet and lecturer in Creative Writing. He grew up in Hoxton and Holloway and is the author of The 392, Your Show, and Wild East, which won the East Anglian Book Awards 2024 overall and the Diverse Book Awards 2025 YA prize. His poetry collection Why I Am Not a Bus Driver came out in 2025, with the poem "Munster Road" highly commended for Best Single Poem at the Forward Prize and featured in the Forward Prize Book of Poetry 2026.His new novel About to Fall Apart is out now with Faber. It's been praised by Ferdia Lennon, Christine Anne Foley and Margaret McDonald. As we talk about, it's a real example of how literature can bring us closer to the overlooked figures in our lives. Candice Carty-Williams called The 392 "completely, overwhelmingly in a league of its own." Your Show was praised by The Observer for its "freestyle poetry" and "stirring" storytelling. Wild East earned him a Black Excellence Award nomination for Outstanding Contribution to Literature.You can get the book here or at your local seller.