Jessie Thompson

Photographer Lee Miller, the subject of a major new film starring Kate Winslet, used her camera lens to pioneer a new way of seeing conflict. Later, broken by what she saw during the Second World War, she found respite in a Sussex farmhouse called Farleys, where she would begin her surreal next act and her son Antony Penrose would discover her secrets, writes Jessie Thompson

From the novels everyone will be talking about to the starriest West End productions, here’s your guide to the coming season’s cultural highlights, as picked by our writers

After writing a bestselling mystery novel, Kate Weinberg found herself in a plotless place with no neat, obvious ending: suffering the torturous, confusing ordeal of long Covid. Now she’s turned the experience into a funny, philosophical novel – one that, as Jessie Thompson knows from experience, perfectly captures the surreal state of invisible illness

The King finds his rift with his youngest son ‘unsettling’, royal biographer Robert Hardman told Hay Festival audiences

Speaking at Hay Festival, the Everyday Sexism founder said that postnatal care in Britain is ‘absolutely dire’

Hear from up-and-coming stars of the literary world before they rocket up the bestseller lists, and make sure you don’t miss some of the eclectic treats on Hay Festival’s vast programme, writes Jessie Thompson

Judi Dench talking Shakespeare, conversations with bestsellers Marian Keyes and David Nicholls, and a deep dive into the day’s news with Independent journalists and leading thinkers – this year’s Hay Festival programme is fit to burst with unmissable events. Jessie Thompson picks the highlights

At Wrexham AFC, British writer and actor Humphrey Ker has become the affable man on the ground for Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Ahead of the third series of Disney+ show ‘Welcome to Wrexham’, he tells Jessie Thompson that his future with the football project is uncertain

The actor talks to Jessie Thompson about the ‘Newsnight’ interview drama ‘Scoop’, intimacy coordinators, tabloid behaviour and her time on ‘Doctor Who’

The ‘king of horror’ has published more than 60 novels and sold over 350 million books – but it all began 50 years ago with the tale of a teen misfit with telekinetic powers who gets her first period in the school shower. Jessie Thompson looks back on a great, career-making novel (which King’s wife had to salvage from the bin)