Brunel's Big Read Live: Claire Lynch

Brunel University of London is a very proud partner of the Nero Book Awards and the Nero New Writers Prize for unpublished writers.

As part of our support of the Nero Book Awards we have the great pleasure of inviting the four Nero Book Awards Category Winners to join us for our Writers Talking series. These events offer an opportunity to hear from the authors about the inspiration behind their award-winning books, and for all aspiring writers to learn about their approach to writing craft. Every year we ask out students and faculty to vote for which of the Nero Book Award category winners they would like to become Brunel's Big read: our community wide reading event that sees hundreds of copies of the winning book distributed across campus. In 2026, the winner of the Big Read vote is Claire Lynch.

Claire Lynch, Winner of the Nero Book Awards Debut Fiction Category, the Nero Gold Award and Brunel’s Big Read, will join us on campus at Brunel to be interviewed by Dr Helen Cullen. Claire Lynch’s debut novel A Family Matter was published in 2025 by Chatto & Windus in the UK. Prior to this, her memoir, Small: On Motherhoods was published by Brazen in 2019. Claire is the author of several academic books, chapters, and journal articles. Her narrative non-fiction work can be found in places such as LitHub, The Washington Post and on BBC Radio 4. Claire holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and is an honorary Professor of English and Creative Writing at Brunel University of London.

She lives in Windsor with her wife and three daughters. About A Family Matter by Claire Lynch: A mother following her heart, a father with the law on his side, a child caught in the middle – an unputdownable debut about a family torn apart by secrets, prejudice and their own best intentions – for fans of Claire Keegan and Louise Kennedy. Claire will be interviewed by Dr Helen Cullen, a novelist and Reader in Creative Writing at Brunel University. Helen is the author of two novels, The Lost Letters of William Woolf and The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually with her third, Iseult, to be published in February, 2027.