Thea Lenarduzzi & Holly Dawson: Stories We Tell
Hear from two writers who explore why we tell the stories we do and how those stories can change, in a conversation chaired by Lucia Osborne-Crowley.
Veering between fiction, memoir, fairy tale and folklore, Thea Lenarduzzi’s The Tower is an extraordinary book about power, abuse and why we don’t always tell the story we set out to tell.
In Holly Dawson’s memoir All of Us Atoms, the author explores memory, identity and the stories that shape us. What makes us who we are? What stories do we inherit – and leave behind?
As she confronts the possibility of losing her memory, Dawson turns inward, retracing the defining moments of her life, from childhood to motherhood, loss and ill-health.
Thea Lenarduzzi is a writer, broadcaster and editor. Her debut, Dandelions, a family memoir and cultural history of migration between Italy and England, won the 2020 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize and was shortlisted for the Ackerley Prize for ‘literary autobiography of outstanding merit’.
Holly Dawson is a writer, editor and teacher. Since 2018, she has been Reader-in-Residence at Charleston, where she gets to indulge her passion for Modernist literature and Virginia Woolf.
Lucia Osborne-Crowley is an award-winning writer and journalist. Her third book, The Lasting Harm, was published by HarperCollins in 2024. It won the People’s Choice Award at the 2025 New South Wales Literary Awards and the 2025 Davitt Award for Non-Fiction.
Need to know
For your visit
This event is held at the Royal Festival Hall Southbank Centre
The Royal Festival Hall is open six days a week.
Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 11pm
Monday, closed.
Plan your visit
The Royal Festival Hall is home to our largest auditorium as well as The Clore Ballroom, National Poetry Library, Members’ Lounge, Festival Bar & Kitchen, Ballroom Cafe and Skylon restaurant.
Getting here
Our address is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.
The nearest tube stations to us are Waterloo and Embankment; Waterloo is also the nearest train station. And more than 20 different London bus routes pass within 500 metres of our venues. More information on getting here by rail, road or river is available on our Getting here page.
We’re cash-free
Please note that we’re unable to accept cash payments across our venues.
Access
We’re working hard to remove barriers, so that our facilities and events can be accessible to as many people as possible.
All help points, toilets, performance and exhibition spaces at the Southbank Centre are accessible to all, as are the cafes, bars and restaurants. We also have excellent public transport links with step-free access.
All information about booking wheelchair spaces, step-free access, blue badge parking, access maps and guides and other help available whilst you’re here, including details about our Access Scheme, can be found on our Access page.
Food & drink
On Level 2 of our Royal Festival Hall you can grab a slice of life by the Thames with drinks and freshly made pizza at our Festival Bar & Kitchen which opens out onto our Riverside Terrace. You can grab a coffee and a slice of freshly made cake from our Ballroom Cafe. Or alternatively enjoy destination dining in the restaurant at Skylon.
From coffee to cocktails, filling favourites to fine dining, plus some of London’s best street food – it’s all here at the Southbank Centre.