11 September 2024
Dan’s new book chronicles his personal encounters, conversations, and moods during a collection of nights. Some of the characters saved Dan’s life, some may yet save yours. It’s possible you already owe someone somewhere some gratitude, yet are unaware of it. There is a mystery about the night-time economy. Simple questions like: How? Where? Who? will give rise to the most amazing answers, stories, and adventures which Dan will share with you.
Dan Richards: biography
Dan Richards is a journalist and writer who specialises in writing about art, travel, and adventure. He is also an accomplished and experienced speaker, having participated in the Edinburgh International Book Festival, also at Hay, at the BBC Proms, and at festivals Europe-wide.
Dan taught at Bristol University, and currently tutors at The National Centre for Creative Writing at UEA, at Moniak Mhor, and the Arvon Foundation.
He co-authored his first book Holloway in 2013 along with Robert MacFarlane and illustrator, Stanley Donwood, and it was an immediate success, being named as a Sunday Times Bestseller. It has since been translated into several languages.
The Beechwood Airship Interviews (2015) explores the creative and the workplaces of some of Britain’s most celebrated actors, artists and musicians, including Judi Dench, Jenny Saville and the Manic Street Preachers.
Climbing Days (2016) in which Dan chronicled his great-great-aunt’s and uncle’s writing-and- climbing lives as they crossed the Alps. Using their 1935 memoir as a guide, Dan climbed across Europe ending with an ascent of one of the highest mountains, Dent Blanche (4357 metres).
Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth (2019) examined the appeal of far-flung shelters in the mountains, the tundra, forests, oceans and deserts – landscapes which have always inspired adventurers, pilgrims, writers and artists. It is about isolation and wilderness, and what draws some people to the far-flung corners of the world.
Overnight is Dan’s newest book, will be published in March 2025. It is an exploration of nocturnal operations which replenish, repair and protect the world as we sleep. It’s a book that has evolved from a potentially passive study to an active celebration of those who work through the night to benefit our days, as well as a hymn to nocturnal wildlife, dreams and art.
