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Stratford Literary Festival

Sat 09 May

|

Crowne Plaza Hotel

The debut novel by the National Theatre board member and former RSC executive director is an intimate, moving and witty story about a love that cannot be spoken. It’s 1951. Talking to RSC Artistic Director Daniel Evans.

Stratford Literary Festival
Stratford Literary Festival

Time & Location

09 May 2026, 11:30 – 12:30

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 6YR, UK

About The Event


The debut novel by the National Theatre board member and former RSC executive director is an intimate, moving and witty story about a love that cannot be spoken. It’s 1951. Miss Dora Ham and Miss Beatrix Veal work in a rural Buckinghamshire post office, careful to maintain their facade as respected local spinsters. But theirs is a love story that began at a suffrage rally in the 1900s, and took them to London’s secret gay clubs between the wars. Now, over the course of one pivotal day, their carefully constructed world begins to fall apart. Talking to RSC Artistic Director Daniel Evans.

£13.9

£11.76 students

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Dame Vikki Heywood was Executive Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2003 until 2012 and before that Joint Chief Executive of the Royal Court Theatre.  She has been an executive producer of many West End and Broadway productions, including Matilda the Musical. She was Chairman of the Royal Society of Arts 2012-2018 and in 2020 was awarded a Damehood for services to the Arts. This is her first novel.​

Muswell Press is a prize-winning independent publisher. The company has been shortlisted for the British Book Award’s Small Trade Press of the Year for the last 4 years and has an outstanding reputation for publishing Debut, Crime and Queer fiction.  Jon Ransom won the Polari First Book Prize with The Whale Tattoo in 2023 and in 2024 went on to win the Polari Book Prize with The Gallopers. The only author to do so in consecutive years. Helen Erichsen was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger 2023. 

For press information please contact fiona@brownleedonald.com

For rights information please contact Andrea Joyce, andrea@joyceliterary.com

Miss Veal and Miss Ham – Vikki Heywood, July 2025

- pb ISBN: 9781838340100 eISBN: 978173919306 - www.muswell-press.co.uk

Vikki Heywood signature
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