Helen Mort: A Line Above the Sky - On Mountains and Motherhood

Join Helen Mort for the launch of A Line Above the Sky: On Mountains and Motherhood, a celebration of the natural world and the freedom and danger it encompasses, hosted by decorated professional rock climber Shauna Coxsey MBE. An avid climber herself, Mort examines the power of our connection to the physical, and unpacks how both womanhood and her new-found motherhood characterises her relationship with nature. At the core of this exploration is a question - why is the physicality of danger so compelling to us?

Helen Mort and Shauna Coxsey will delve into society’s perception of adventurous and risk-taking women, squaring it with Mort’s own experiences in a poetic declaration of love for the natural world. In a time in which we are ever more disconnected from the nature which surrounds us and sustains us, is it time to reconcile our own relationships with the outside world, in all of its wild and liberating glory?

Helen Mort is an award-winning Sheffield-born poet and novelist. She has won the Foyle Young Poets award five times, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.

Shauna Coxsey is Britain’s most successful competitive climber, and two time winner of the Bouldering World Cup. She has been an ambassador for the British Mountaineering Council since 2013, and retired from competition climbing after participating in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.