Free to Decide: reproductive rights for all

Please check ticket info for this event below, incl. information about access.

To be able to experience true reproductive rights, we must have the freedom to say yes as well as no to parenthood. Yet patriarchy, racism and heteronormativity seek to force some into the role, and others out of it, through restricted abortion rights, denied fertility health care and myriad kinds of oppression in between.

We’re delighted to welcome three authors to share their wisdom, generosity and fierce analysis of what reproductive rights really mean today - and where our most urgent action is needed.

Our Speakers

Sian Norris is a writer and journalist specialising in human rights. She has reported for the Observer, the i, the Times, openDemocracy, the Lead UK and many more, and reported from the UK, Kenya, Bangladesh, Romania, and Ukraine. She is the author of Bodies Under Siege: how the far right attack on reproductive rights went global, and was the founder of the Bristol Women's Literature Festival.

Alice Spawls is co-editor of the London Review of Books and a publisher at Silver Press.

Kirsty Logan’s latest book is Now She is Witch (Harvill Secker, 2023), a queer medieval witch revenge quest. Forthcoming is The Unfamiliar (Virago, 2023), a memoir of queer pregnancy and parenthood. She is also the author of two previous novels, three story collections, two chapbooks, a 10-hour audio play for Audible, and several collaborative projects with musicians and visual artists. Her books have won the Lambda, Polari, Saboteur, Scott and Gavin Wallace awards. Her work has been optioned for TV, adapted for stage, recorded for radio and podcasts, exhibited in galleries and distributed from a vintage Wurlitzer cigarette machine.

*Please note that masks will be required at this event (as with all Lighthouse events).

*Accessibility: All events will be professionally filmed & livestreamed. The Roxy is wheelchair accessible (including toilets) and we'll have provisions for neurodivergent guests including stims, quiet space and colour-coded lanyards.

*Events are £5 or free -we completely understand paying for one or two events and then getting free spots for others. The Radical Book Fair is entirely bookshop run and ticket sales are vital to keeping the fair sustainable and paying all our speakers so all support is heartily welcome!

*Featured books: The book & ticket option will select the most recently published book at any given event, if you’re not sure which book you want or don’t want that featured book, then buy a £5 voucher ticket that can be used for any of the books below.

*If you'd like to help make the book fair accessible to more folks, please consider adding to our pay-it-forward fund HERE.