Artist and writer Jackie Morris visits us again via Crowdcast for a reading from one of her two newly published tales, The Wild Swans (Unbound). Jackie will read from this captivating tale and we encourage attendees to knit and stitch during the reading and share on social media after.

This event will be streamed on our Crowdcast channel.

A girl loses her beloved brothers when they are turned into swans by her wicked stepmother. She embarks on a vital quest with one purpose: to find them and turn them back into boys again.

But the task is complicated. She must pick nettles with her bare hands and turn them to yarn, to spin and knit into shirts for each of the eleven brothers. And all the while she cannot speak, for if she does, even so much as a whisper, it will be like a knife in the heart of each swan-boy.

And so she knits in silence. And where there is silence, people will put words.

The Wild Swans is a beautiful and lyrical extended version of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen in Jackie Morris's enchanting retelling, complete with delicate watercolor paintings throughout this new edition.

A story about love and bravery, about how to listen, and about how, when we do not listen, we hear what we wish to hear. "Beautiful, lyrical, and lovely."

Jackie Morris is an author and illustrator. She studied illustration at Hereford College of Art and Bath Academy and has illustrated many books, and written some. The Lost Words, co-authored with Robert Macfarlane, won the Kate Greenaway Medal 2019. She lives in Pembrokeshire.