Hag: Modern folklore and fables

Irenosen Okojie and Emma Glass will dive into the untold stories of our isles, journeying through magic, mermaids and the monsters that haunt us. Written by some of the most exciting women writing in Britain and Ireland today, these uncanny short stories crack open forgotten folktales and spill their wild reimagingings across the page.

Programmed by the National Centre for Writing for Norwich Book Festival.

The event will be followed by book sales and a signing with the authors.

Tickets: £12

Age Guidance: 16+

Irenosen Okojie

Irenosen Okojie is an award winning Nigerian British author whose work pushes the boundaries of form, language and ideas. Her novels, Curandera, Butterfly Fish, short story collections, Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch, have won and been nominated for multiple awards. Her latest book, Quixotic Fissures: Notes on Transformation, will be published in November 2026. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Observer, the Guardian and the Huffington Post. She co-presented the BBC's Turn Up for The Books podcast, alongside Simon Savidge and Bastille frontman Dan Smith. Her work has been optioned for the screen. She has judged various literary prizes including the BBC National Short Story Award and the Dublin Literary Award. She was a judge for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction. Formerly the Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, she was awarded an MBE For Services to Literature in 2021 and selected as a visionary talent in The Next 25 Visionaries to Watch list. She is the director and founder of Black to the Future Festival.

Emma Glass

Emma Glass was born in Wales and is now based in London, where she writes and works as a children's nurse. Her debut novel Peach was published by Bloomsbury in 2018, has been translated into eight languages, and was longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second novel Rest and Be Thankful was published by Bloomsbury in 2020 and is currently under option for film. Both novels received absolute raves both in the UK and US, including glowing praise from The New Yorker, LA Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and many others. Her third novel, Mrs Jekyll, was published in 2024.