Art critics don’t always make good novelists (and vice versa), and this event explores the challenges of combining the critical and the creative in writing. Sara Baume studied fine art at Dun Laoghaire before turning to writing, and her debut novel Spill Simmer Falter Wither has been showered with the sort of acclaim usually reserved for Booker Prize winners. Brian Dillon is a lecturer at the Royal College of Art whose research into ruins produced a critical study, an exhibition at Tate Britain and the novella Sanctuary. His new novel, The Great Explosion, brings to life a forgotten tragedy that took place during the First World War.