by Alessandra Leone
At January’s WRAP Café we welcomed this term’s author, Ashley Hickson-Lovence, whose novel The 392 describes a bus journey in London, introducing various characters and their lives.
The night started off with Tuesday Shannon’s poems, and we were then invited to listen to some of Ashley’s bus poems. His poems are not yet published, and so for all of us it was a treat to hear them here first! Some of his poems are quite personal in nature, such as his description of his girlfriend’s bus accident and his father’s experience as a London bus driver. He then went on to read the chapter on Boxer from his book The 392. The character is one of the most likeable characters in the book, and you want to cheer him on. Lastly, we heard a poem from one of our newest WRAP members John Lewell, which I quite enjoyed as it had a lot of references to our lives today, and I especially enjoyed his mention of Twitter.
We all had a great evening, and two of our WRAP members mentioned that they enjoyed being able to have an author answer their questions as well as hearing him recite his unpublished poems. We thank Ashley for coming to the session, and we are excited to have him again soon for the WRAP Evening Bookgroup on Monday 15th March.
You can register for our WRAP Live! YouTube In Conversation event with Ashley on Thursday 31st March by clicking here. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear him talk about football, inspiring reluctant readers, the importance of music in his life and what he’s doing next.
About Alessandra Leone
Alessandra joined WRAP (Writing, Reading and Pleasure) in October 2020 and has participated in a variety of writing and reading opportunities, uniting with other like-minded reading and writing enthusiasts. She is a first-year student in the School of Arts and Humanities.
