BLF 2026 - Pathetic Masculinity
Recital Hall, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
200 Jennens Road, B4 7XR
£10
£8 under 18s, over 60s
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Birmingham Literature Festival 2026
Pathetic Masculinity: Putting the Feeling into Fiction with Taylor Burns and Keiran Goddard
In 2023, the poet Eileen Myles compiled an anthology of writing under the rubric 'Pathetic Literature': works of fiction, poetry and playwriting unashamedly full of awkwardness and feeling with the aim of returning the notion of the 'pathetic' back to its root meaning in pathos.
Introducing their own deeply felt Birmingham-based novels Trav and I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, writers Taylor Burns and Keiran Goddard expand on Myles's umbrella term to explore contemporary masculine identity and its relationship with intensities of emotion, economic precarity, and working-class consciousness.
Expect an intimate and open-hearted conversation that will offer a timely reminder, for anyone who might need it, that boys do indeed cry.
In conversation with award-winning writer, bookseller and Birmingham Literature Festival 2026 Programmer, Clive Judd.
Sponsored by Birmingham City University
Running time approx. one hour
Birmingham Literature Festival 2026
"Birmingham Literature Festival 2026"Events will be announced soon.