Panel: Writing Fiction, Holding History

How do playwrights navigate the line between imagination and lived trauma? This conversation explores the creative and ethical questions that come with writing fiction rooted in real, often difficult histories. What does it mean to invent with care, especially when those histories still resonate for audiences today? 

TBTL’s Artistic Director (maternity cover) Julia Samuels is joined on the panel by Hefted writer Eireann Devlin and Beth Broomby, a playwright and former journalist and research communications specialist working at Lancaster University. Beth’s work as a writer has included Characteristics of a Child, a contemporary Cumbrian ghost story about a new mother coming to terms with her newborn’s disability.