Lisa Blower is an award-winning writer and academic hailed by Kit De Waal as the “natural heir to Arnold Bennett”. She is a champion of working-class literature and regional voices, often paying homage to The Potteries where she grew up. She's the author of two novels, Sitting Ducks (Fair Acre Press, 2016) - shortlisted for The Rubery Award, the Arnold Bennett Prize and The Guardian's Not the Booker - and Pondweed (Myriad Editions, 2020).