Will discusses the impact of the web, the internet, social media and the handheld computer (also known as a ‘phone’) on the practice of reading in the 21st century. Drawing on his book Why Read: Selected Writings 2001-2021, he’ll present a complex picture of discontinuous adaptation to new media, and interrogate whether the transition is a gain overall for the human psyche and its societies… or a net loss. Suitable for high school students. The event is given in memory of Simon Heald.

To buy tickets for this online talk on Thursday October 12 at 11am for £5, click here.

Will is going to be performing as part of the line-up at the Roughler Club at the Playground Theatre, Latimer Road London W10 6RQ on Thursday June 2 from 7pm, a showcase for established and emerging artists of acoustic music, poetry and story telling. For more details and to buy tickets, visit the Playground Theatre website.

Will is going to be performing at The Poetry Shack at the Candid Arts Centre in London at 7pm on 31 May, along with Stewart Home and others. To book tickets, visit candidartslondon.com.

Will is going to be in conversation with Steven Gale at the fragments festival in London on Sunday April 10, celebrating 100 years of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. “These will be short, 15-minute events in 22 of London’s most beautiful churches. It takes place in the City of London in the actual geography of the poem’s setting and where Eliot worked at Lloyds Bank when writing the poem.” Here’s the full programme.

Will is going to discuss the Modernist approach, the inheritors of Eliot, and the fraught relationship between content and form.