In Conversation with Peter Kalu and Muli Amaye

A chance to hear from two authors as part of our Black History Month events. Pete Kalu’s new book Act Normal is a memoir filled with stories, from the real to the surreal. Muli Amaye is a novelist and short story writer whose new book is The Black Writer’s Toolbox.

Pete Kalu’s stories range in style from the real to the surreal to the comic. His latest book is Act Normal (HopeRoad October 2025), shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2026. He received a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship Award in 2024 to help complete this work which is “impressively experimental, thoughtful and challenging.” For many years he ran a Trinidad-inspired Carnival band called Moko Jumbi and the trickster character of West African and Cariibbean folklore has been an abiding influence on his art.

Muli Amaye is a novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, A House With No Angels, was published by Crocus Press in 2019. Her short fiction has been published in anthologies and literary journals. In 2024 she was longlisted for the Commonwealth writer’s prize and made the second round of the Bridport Prize with her short story, The Woman Who Swallowed Herself. Her latest textbook is The Black Writer’s Toolbox, published by Bloomsbury Publishing in January 2026

This event is part of our Black History Month Celebrations.