Remembering Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life

Join us for an intimate evening of poetry readings and conversation in Thom Gunn’s memory. Poets Andrew McMillan and Kit Fan read from The Man with Night Sweats and join Michael Nott, chronicler of Gunn’s largely undocumented life, and writer Amelia Abraham for a conversation reflecting on their personal connections to Gunn’s work and its enduring impact.

Through the 1980s and beyond, Gunn found himself in the midst of the AIDS crisis, recording its catastrophic impact in The Man with Night Sweats. This event, which falls shortly after World AIDS Day, examines Gunn’s work as both elegy and epitaph.

Andrew McMillan was born in Barnsley in 1988. His three collections of poetry, physical, playtime and pandemonium won a wide array of awards, and his debut novel, Pity, was published in 2024. He is professor of contemporary writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Kit Fan writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction. His most recent poetry collection, The Ink Cloud Reader, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. He reviews regularly for The Guardian and The Times Literary Supplement. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Michael Nott is the author of Photopoetry, 1845 – 2015: A Critical History (2018) and an editor of The Letters of Thom Gunn (2021). His biography of Gunn, Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life, was published in July 2024.

Amelia Abraham is a journalist and author from London. She writes regularly for The Guardian, The Observer, Dazed and other titles on queer arts, culture and politics. Her books include Queer Intentions: A (Personal) Journey Through LGBTQ+ Culture and We Can Do Better Than This: 35 Voices on the Future of LGBTQ+ Rights.