Beth Underdown reads her National Trust-commissioned almost-ghost-stories at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, in combination with a conversation with Dr Tania Hershman on being a writer-in-residence.

1918, and some women in England have gained the right to vote. A few brief weeks before the armistice, the shortage of cotton has brought a strange hush to Quarry Bank mill and the women who make their lives here. In the silence, their voices are suddenly loud: loud enough to be heard, even now, one hundred years on… Working with the National Trust archive, Beth Underdown presents Love makes as many, a new commission responding to the Lost Voices exhibition and supported by Trust New Art. These are ghost stories about love – and love stories about ghosts – that capture the voices of five women at Quarry Bank, and the echoes they leave behind. Beth Underdown is the author of the hugely successful debut novel The Witchfinder’s Sister, and lectures in Creative Writing at The University of Manchester. Beth will read some of her stories, and discuss her writing residency at Quarry Bank with author Tania Hershman.