Author Emily Buchanan discusses her debut novel, Send Flowers, a witty and original story of love, hope, protest and... houseplant boyfriends

7:00pm-9:00pm Fort Road Bar

Based in a near future that feels all too real, Thanet-born author Emily Buchanan's first novel Send Flowers, a fresh and acerbic take on climate fiction or 'cli-fi', opens as its main character, eco-influencer and activist Fiona, is hiding away in her flat, blaming herself for the death of her boyfriend, Ed. When his favourite plant is dropped at her doorstep with an anonymous note, she sprinkles Ed's ashes into the soil and wakes to find the plant has flowered... and what's more, it can talk! Fiona's explanation, naturally, is that Ed has come back in plant form. Determined to keep Ed alive and in bloom, she follows his prompts out into a world on the brink of collapse...

Now balancing her writing career with one as a freelance creative working with charities, non-profits and NGOs, Emily started writing Send Flowers while working for Greenpeace UK as a Creative Campaigner. 'I imagined a world where protest is banned, civil disobedience leads to prison time, and anyone who dares to defy the government is labelled a terrorist', she says of the novel's inception, adding that its key message, in line with her core beliefs, is the conviction that 'disobedience, when done in denial of cruelty, is a radical act of love'. Emily will be chatting about Send Flowers with the wonderful Dan Thompson, a writer, curator, social artist and director at Marine Studios in Margate.