5x15

5x15 and renowned nonprofit The Moth present a night of stories, inspired by the New York Times Bestselling book, How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth. Join us for an evening of true stories from two Moth speakers, storyteller interviews, and tips from some of the authors from the book, including Moth Directors Catherine Burns, Meg Bowles, and Kate Tellers. Hosted by poet, playwright, author, and Moth Storyteller Jon Goode. With thanks for your support for 5x15 Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

In January, the month of resolutions, join 5x15 to hear the acclaimed author Pico Iyer on how we might find paradise in the present. Paradise is a universal but elusive concept; a place we might spend our whole lives looking for. Moving between Iran, North Korea, the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas and the temples of Japan, Pico Iyer’s new book The Half Known Life: Finding Paradise in a Divided World reflects on ideas of utopia and ways of finding solace in these fractious times. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into warzones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld – or can it be found in the here and now? Don’t miss the chance to hear from one of the most inspiring and perceptive travel writers of our time. Pico Iyer will be in conversation with the internationally best-selling writer and podcaster Katherine May, author of Wintering and the forthcoming Enchantment. Praise for Pico Iyer 'Nothing less than a guided tour of the human soul ... This is a book not only for the ages, but for our very specific, very troubled age. A masterpiece’ — ELIZABETH GILBERT “Immersive and profound…. Iyer matches penetrating insights with some of the most transportive prose around. This further burnishes Iyer’s reputation as one of the best.” — Publishers Weekly PICO IYER was born in Oxford, England in 1957. Since 1982 he has been a full-time writer, publishing 15 books, translated into 23 languages, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism, from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. They include such long- running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu, The Open Road and The Art of Stillness. At the same time he has been writing for Time, The New York Times, Granta, the Financial Times and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide. His four talks for TED have received more than 10 million views so far. Since 1992 Iyer has spent much of his time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur, California, and most of the rest in Nara, Japan. KATHERINE MAY is an internationally bestselling author and podcaster living in Whitstable, UK. Her hybrid memoir Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times became a New York Times, Sunday Times and Der Spiegel bestseller, was adapted as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and was shortlisted for the Porchlight and Barnes and Noble Book of the Year. Her journalism and essays have appeared in a range of publications including The New York Times, The Observer and Aeon. Katherine’s podcast, The Wintering Sessions, ranks in the top 1% worldwide, and she has been a guest presenter for On Being’s The Future of Hope series. Her next book, Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age, will be published by Faber in March 2023. Katherine lives with her husband, son, two cats and a dog. She loves walking, sea-swimming and pickling slightly unappealing things. With thanks for your support for 5x15 Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Philip Lymbery is Chief Executive of leading international farm animal welfare organisation Compassion in World Farming, as well as being a Visiting Professor at the University of Winchester, award-winning author and animal advocate. His new book, SIXTY HARVESTS LEFT, takes its title from a chilling warning made by the United Nations that the world’s soils could be gone within a lifetime. Uncovering how the food industry and ‘Big Ag’ threatens our world, it also spotlights the pioneers who are battling to bring landscapes back to life. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

5x15 is thrilled to welcome best-selling writer and journalist Luke Harding to talk about his new book Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival, a powerful and urgent account of the war in Ukraine. Reporting from Ukraine as foreign correspondent for the Guardian, Luke Harding has had unique insights into this conflict. Invasion, which is the first book of reportage from the front line, is a 'superb first draft of history' (Anne Applebaum) that examines the personal, religious and ideological motivations behind Putin’s decision to invade, and offers a moving testament to Ukrainian survival. For this special 5x15 event, Luke will be in conversation with Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times and author of The Age of the Strongman, to discuss the issues that are essential to understanding this terrible war: the factors behind it, the unfolding developments, and its possible outcomes. Author royalties from this edition of Invasion will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. Praise for Luke Harding 'Compelling, important and heartbreaking with all the urgency and immediacy of outstanding war reportage, here is the Russian invasion of Ukraine minute by minute, political and personal, from the cabinets of power to the streets and apartments of ordinary Ukrainians by a master reporter and analyst.' - SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE 'Luke Harding has once again written a superb first draft of history, this time of the Ukrainian war. An excellent, moving account of an ongoing tragedy.' - ANNE APPLEBAUM 'Brilliant . . . Harding is one of the best experts on Putin's Russia. Invasion reads like an exciting military-political thriller, but all its characters and events are true.' - ANDREY KURKOV 'Luke Harding is one of the best reporters in the world.' - ROBERTO SAVIANO LUKE HARDING is an award-winning foreign correspondent with the Guardian. He has reported from Delhi, Berlin and Moscow and has also covered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya and Syria. Between 2007 and 2011 he was the Guardian’s Moscow bureau chief. The Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the cold war and in summer 2022 put him on an official blacklist. He is the author of Mafia State and co-author of WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, The Liar: The Fall of Jonathan Aitken (nominated for the Orwell Prize) and The Snowden Files. Two of Harding’s books have been made into films; The Fifth Estate and Snowden. GIDEON RACHMAN is the Chief Foreign Affairs columnist for the Financial Times. In 2016 he won the Orwell Prize for Journalism and was named Commentator of the Year at the European Press Prize awards. Previously he worked for The Economist for fifteen years, and has served as a foreign correspondent in Washington, Bangkok and Brussels. His new book The Age of the Strongman examines the new nationalism in Russia, Europe, and beyond, asking what forces are in place to keep these strongmen in check? With thanks for your support for 5x15 online. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Raynor Winn’s new memoir Landlines is a story that begins in fear but ends in hope. As the health of Moth, Raynor’s husband, declines, the couple set out to walk the gruelling, remote and stunningly beautiful terrain of Scotland’s Cape Wrath Trail, reflecting on community and the environment along the way. Raynor is the bestselling author of the astonishing, multi-award-winning The Salt Path (2019) which told the story of another remarkable journey, when nature first saved the couple. Just days after Raynor learnt that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, was terminally ill, their home was taken away and they lost their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they made the impulsive, brave decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path. 'You feel the world is a better place because Raynor and Moth are in it' - The Times 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Colm Tóibín's new book, A Guest at the Feast, is a celebration of writing and brings together essays about growing up in Ireland during radical change; about cancer, priests, popes, homosexuality, and literature. He was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of ten novels, and his work has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, as well as the Folio Prize in 2015; and has won the Costa Novel Award, the Impac Award and the David Cohen Prize for Literature, amongst others. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Gail Whiteman is an expert on global risk arising from the systemic changes occurring in the natural environment. She is Professor of Sustainability at the University of Exeter’s Business School and founder of Arctic Basecamp, a team of Arctic experts and scientists who, for the last five years, have brought their Arctic-based research to the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos. In so doing, their aim is to call for action from global leaders to apply responsive and responsible leadership to address global risks from Arctic change. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Join 5x15 online in November to hear acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Abi Morgan in conversation with beloved One Day author and screenwriter David Nicholls. THIS IS NOT A PITY MEMOIR is BAFTA and Emmy-award winner Abi Morgan’s extraordinary story, written in the wake of her partner’s devastating illness. When she found the man she had loved for nearly twenty years lying on the bathroom floor, it was clear that life for both of them would never be the same again. But this is not a pity memoir – this is a love story. This is a book about the things you wished you’d said to the person you love; about the silence of being lost in space, and the importance of family, and parties, and noise. It’s about not knowing and not being known. It’s about the difference between living and surviving, and about finding a way to carry on when life is turned upside down. Above all, it’s a reminder that, even in the worst times, there is light ahead. Praise for Abi Morgan ‘Breathtaking.. this book is a gift’ - MERYL STREEP ‘The kind of book you will find yourself saying urgently, over and over, to friends: 'Have you read it?' - CAITLIN MORAN ‘Truly breathtaking. Arrestingly honest, funny, profound and exquisitely written. I could not have loved it more’ - CAREY MULLIGAN ABI MORGAN is a BAFTA and Emmy-award winning playwright and screenwriter whose credits include The Iron Lady, Suffragette, Sex Traffic, The Hour, Brick Lane and Shame. She is the creator and writer of BBC drama, The Split. DAVID NICHOLLS is one of Britain's most successful writers with an incomparable talent for making us laugh, cry and wince with recognition. He is the author of five bestselling novels - Starter for Ten, The Understudy, One Day, Us and Sweet Sorrow – which have sold over 8 million copies worldwide and are published in forty languages. David is also a sought-after screenwriter- his first break came when he wrote for the third series of Cold Feet. Highlights since then have included adapting Far From the Madding Crowd and Great Expectations and his own first novels Starter for Ten and One Day into feature films. His most recent screenwork was Patrick Melrose, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, adapted from the novels by Edward St Aubyn. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Sam Knight is a staff writer for the New Yorker, has won two Foreign Press Association awards and was shortlisted for the 2018 Orwell Prize for political writing. His 2017 Guardian Long Read on the events that will follow the death of the Queen, ‘London Bridge is Down’, was viewed four million times. In THE PREMONITIONS BUREAU, his first book, he reveals the strange, true and unsettling tale of a 1960s psychiatrist obsessed with investigating why some people seemed able to predict disaster. A story of madness and wonder, science and the supernatural, it is a journey to the outer edges of reason and the human mind. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Lucy Siegle is a journalist, broadcaster and eco expert. She is the Observer and Guardian’s Ethical Living columnist, the BBC’s The One Show’s resident environmental expert, and set up the Observer Ethical Awards in 2005. In BE THE ULTIMATE FRIEND OF THE EARTH, she tackles ten big topics involved in our quest to reach net zero. She explores how every one of us can be an ally to the planet; how we can discover how our consumer habits and lifestyles really impact the environment – and how we can all be engines for change. Along the way, she introduces the projects, the places and the people already living as if this planet was precious. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories