Helen Mort & Dan Richards

This event is part of Derby Book Festival.

“Because they’re there?”  Is this the answer to the eternal question: why do people climb mountains?

Poet Helen Mort and author Dan Richards bring a new perspective to this question by exploring the exploits of largely forgotten, pioneering female mountaineers.

Described in The Observer as ‘One of 2016’s Hidden Gems …’, Climbing Days sees Dan Richards on the trail of his great-great-aunt, Dorothy Pilley, a prominent and pioneering mountaineer of the early twentieth century. For years, Dorothy and her husband, I. A. Richards, remained mysterious to Dan, but the chance discovery of her 1935 memoir, Climbing Days, led him on a journey. Using it as a guide he began to travel and climb across Europe’s peaks, following in their footsteps.  

Helen Mort’s latest poetry collection No Map Could Show Them, recounts in her inimitable style the exploits of path-breaking female mountaineers and the inspiration of mountains and the Peak District landscape. Described by Carol Ann Duffy as “among the brightest stars in the sparkling new constellation of young British poets”, Helen is a keen climber herself so has a very personal understanding of what it is to climb mountains. Together they discuss these, largely forgotten, pioneering women.

Helen Mort Twitter
Dan Richards Twitter