Charis welcomes Nicola Griffith in conversation with Edward Austin Hall for a celebration of Menewood: A Novel. In the much anticipated sequel to Hild, Nicola Griffith’s Menewood transports readers back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal change.

Hild is no longer the bright child who made a place in Edwin Overking's court with her seemingly supernatural insight. She is eighteen, honed and tested, the formidable Lady of Elmet, now building her personal stronghold in the valley of Menewood. 

But Edwin needs his most trusted advisor. Old alliances are fraying. Younger rivals are snapping at his heels. War is brewing—bitter war, winter war. Not knowing who to trust, he becomes volatile and unpredictable. Hild begins to understand the true extent of the chaos ahead, and now she must navigate the turbulence and fight to protect both the kingdom and her own people. 

Hild will face the losses and devastation of total war, and then she must find a new strength, the implacable determination to forge a radically different path for herself and her people. In the valley, her last redoubt, her community slowly takes root. She trains herself and her unexpected allies in new ways of thinking as she prepares for one last wager: risking all on a single throw for a better future…

In the last decade, Hild has become a beloved classic of epic storytelling. Menewood picks up where that journey left off, and exceeds it in every way.

Nicola Griffith (she/her) is a dual UK/US citizen living in Seattle. She is the author of award-winning novels including Hild and Ammonite, and her shorter work has appeared in Nature, New Scientist, New York Times, etc. She is the founder and co-host of #CripLit, holds a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University, and enjoys a ferocious bout of wheelchair boxing. She is married to novelist and screenwriter Kelley Eskridge.

Edward Austin Hall co-edited Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond, acknowledged in a front-page NPR.org story headlined “Sci-Fi Has Changed A Lot In The Past Decade—These 7 Reads Will Show You How.” Hall’s novel, Dread Isle, was published in 2020. His novelette Green Treacheries appears in the 2022 anthologyTerminus 2. Currently he is editing some transcribed (and fiery) civil rights–related sermons by the Reverend Doctor C. T. Vivian that are in search of a publisher.

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Menewood: Nicola Griffith in conversation with Edward Austin Hall