For our next Writers & Readers session, we will host an in-conversation between Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and fellow author and friend Claire Halliday.

This story, full of beauty and hope, is based on years of interviews author Heather Morris conducted with real-life Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz- Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov.

 "It is heart-wrenching, illuminating, and unforgettable. Extraordinary - moving, confronting and uplifting... a story about the extremes of human behaviour: calculated brutality alongside impulsive and selfless acts of love. I recommend it unreservedly." - GRAEME SIMSION.

"The Tattooist of Auschwitz has the quality of a dark fairy-tale. It is both simple and epic, shot through with compassion and love… Everyone should read it." - HUGH RIMINTON

Heather Morris is a New Zealand native writer, now resident in Australia. For several years, she studied and wrote screenplays, one of which was optioned by an Academy Award-winning screenwriter in the US. When she met Holocaust survivor Lale Sokolov, both their lives changed forever. Heather originally wrote Lale’s story as a screenplay, before reshaping it into a novel.

Claire Halliday has been a full-time writer for 20 years, after establishing herself as a freelance feature contributor for a variety of leading magazines and newspapers, including The Sunday Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Women’s Weekly, Marie Claire, GQ and many more.