Helen Mort & Anna Fleming - Women Moving Mountains: on Climbing, Nature and Ambition

For Helen Mort and Anna Fleming the mountains represent both freedom and control. Helen and Anna join us on stage to share how climbing has changed and revitalised them and made them appreciate who they are.

Poet and novelist Helen Mort’s A Line Above the Sky is a love letter to losing oneself in physicality, whether climbing a mountain or bringing a child into the world. Melding memoir and nature writing to ask why humans are drawn to danger, and how we can find freedom in pushing our limits, she examines attitudes to women who take risks, particularly once they become mothers, and questions who their ‘body’ belongs to. Helen’s own story is haunted by the life of Alison Hargreaves who died on K2, having gone against convention by refusing to give up her career as a professional mountaineer after having children.

Anna Fleming’s Time on Rock: A Climber’s Route into the Mountains charts her progress from terrified beginner to confident lead climber, and the way in which learning to climb offered a new relationship with both the landscape and herself. She describes how climbing invites us into the history of a place: geologically, of course, but also culturally, delving into what it’s like to be a woman in such a male-dominated world – and the ways in which the climbing community is trying to shift that balance.

They'll discuss why humans are drawn to danger, and how we can find freedom in pushing our limits, examining attitudes to women who take risks, particularly once they become mothers, and questioning who their ‘body’ belongs to. The event will delve into what it’s like to be a woman in such a male-dominated world – and the ways in which the climbing community is trying to shift that balance.

Anna Fleming’s Time on Rock: A Climber’s Route into the Mountains (Published by Penguin) and Helen Mort’s A Line Above the Sky (Published by Ebury Press) will be available to purchase at the Festival book store over the Festival weekend.

There will be a book signing straight after the event.

Helen and Anna will be in conversation with Emily Ankers, founder of the online climbing magazine Beta.