Between the Salt and the Ash Jake Morris-Campbell
Event details
Take a journey into the soul of Northumbria with writer Jake Morris-Campbell as he seeks to understand the deep past and uncertain future of his homeland.
After inheriting the miner's safety lamp that belonged to his great-grandfather, Jake set out on a pilgrimage across his homeland. Travelling from the Holy Island of Lindisfarne to Durham Cathedral, he asked what new ways might be made through the old north.
Based on his book, Between the Salt and the Ash, Jake will explain how this region, once a hub of early Christian Britain and later strongly defined by industry and class, now faces an uncertain future. But it remains a unique and starkly beautiful part of the country, with a deep history that is intimately entwined with the idea of Englishness.
Jake will recount his journey along the 'Camino of the North', exploring the shifting nature of individual and regional identity across 1300 years of social change. At the same time, he will explain how his pilgrimage challenged him to reconsider his own calling as a writer and how it relates to the lives of the people he meets along the way.
Join Jake as, rejecting the damaging trope of 'left behind' communities, he reveals neglected seams of culture and history, while offering a heartfelt celebration of the place he calls hyem.
This event will take place live on Zoom Webinar. You will receive a link to join a couple of days before the event and a reminder an hour before. During the event, you can ask questions via a Q&A function, but audience cameras and microphones will remain muted throughout.
Book sales
You can buy copies of many of our speakers’ books from Fox Lane Books, a local independent bookseller and Festival partner. In some cases, author signed bookplates are available too.
Portrait credit: Andy Martin
About the speaker
Dr Jake Morris-Campbell was born in South Shields in 1988. His collection of poetry Corrigenda for Costafine Town (2021) was longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. A BBC New Generation Thinker, he regularly appears on Radio 3. Recent commissions include writing for the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition at The Laing Gallery, Newcastle and for the After Dark Festival at The Glasshouse, Gateshead. He is co-editor of Marratide: Selected Poems of William Martin (2025) and currently works as Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. He is the author of Between the Salt and the Ash: A journey into the soul of Northumbria (Manchester University Press, 2025).
Partners
