Christopher Fowler, at Polari on Friday
Author appearances, poetry and spoken word events in London this week
Thursday 23 January
Debut novelists Tom Finch, Barbara Marsh, Anthea Nicholson, Saira Shah and Jack Wolf are reading from their books at Camden Working Men’s College. Free, 7pm
Matthew Gregory and Francesco Pacifico are at Foyles to help launch issue 9 of The White Review. Free, 6.30pm
Daunt Books has two events in different venues: in Marylebone Horatio Clare discusses his latest, Down to the Sea in Ships (£8, 7pm) while at Keats House Rachel Cooke looks at ten astonishing women of the 1950s (£5, 7pm)
Liam Williams, Will Adamsdale and more tell stories of buildings at excellent comedy venue/promoter Invisible Dot in King’s Cross. £10, 7.45pm
Brian Patten and Mary Murphy are Bang Said the Gun‘s guests, down in SE1. £7 / £5, 8pm
Salena Godden, Alan Johnson, Jonathan Dimbleby, Kate Fox and Stephen Kelman ask if a silver spoon is necessary to be a writer, at a Royal Society of Literature / First Story discussion – head to the Radisson Hotel in Bloomsbury. £10.90, 7pm
James Smythe and Tania Unsworth join the Post-Apocalyptic Book Club at Waterstones Piccadilly for the night. £5 / £3, 6.30pm
Friday 24 January
Words With Edge Festival starts at Red Door Studios in East Ham and runs until 31 January, featuring Hollie McNish, Slambassadors and more.
One of our favourite authors, Christopher Fowler heads the bill at Polari at the Southbank Centre, with Joelle Taylor, James Maker, Keith Jarrett and Anya Nyx. £5, 7.45pm
Harry Eyres and Peter Phillips join Hylda Sims for Fourth Friday at the Poetry Cafe. £7 / £5, 8pm
Saturday 25 January
Stella Duffy, David Almond and Rebecca Swirksy are guests at the Word Factory, rocking up at Waterstones Piccadilly. £12 / £8, 6pm
Karen McCarthy Woolf, Barbara Marsh, John McCullough, Martha Sprackland, Okey Nzelu, Stuart McKenzie and Anita Pati are guests at The Shuffle at the Poetry Cafe. £5 / £3, 7.30pm
Sunday 26 January
There’ll be a few places available on the door for Joe Dunthorne headlining at Keats House. Free, 2pm
Monday 27 January
Malika Booker hosts Architects of our Republic with protest/freedom songs from Charlie Dark in response to Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have a Dream speech, plus five specially commissioned poetry films. See it all at the Stephen Lawrence Centre in Deptford. Free, 6.30pm
Tuesday 28 January
Christopher Reid, Liane Strauss, Jacqueline Saphra, Richard O’Brien and more read at a launch of a pair of books of love poems inspired by Ovid, at the Tea House Theatre in Vauxhall. Free, 7pm
Courttia Newland, Julia Bell, Aidan Andrew Dun and Malcolm Bennett are among the guests at new night In Yer Ear, at the King and Queen pub in Fitzrovia. £1, 7.45pm
There’s more darkly comic fairytales from Retold at the Hen and Chickens Theatre until Saturday. £10, 7pm
Niall O’Sullivan hosts Poetry Unplugged open mic night at the Poetry Cafe. £5 / £4, 7.30pm
Wednesday 29 January
Jonathan Lethem talks to Benjamin Markovits about his new book Dissident Gardens, at the London Review Bookshop. £10, 7pm
Melissa Harrison and Stuart Evers are the guests at the Big Green Bookshop‘s Big Green Bookswap. £5, 7.30pm
Iain McKay looks at Kropotkin’s classic text Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution next to contemporary thinkers like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould and Matt Ridley, at Housmans. £3, 7pm
Follow @LondonistLit for our pick of that day’s literary events.