Events

PLEASE NOTE: Online events appear in purple type.

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Society events (members only)

Online events

Recordings

The VWSGB holds regular live online events, which are recorded and loaded to the Society’s YouTube channel. Members can access recordings to May 2022 using the password supplied to them. (From July 2022 only ticket holders have access to the event recording.)
Recordings of online events to May 2022
Email onlinevwsgb@gmail.com for further information and queries.

An Introduction to the WoolfNotes Project

Wednesday 14 May 2025, 5.30pm BST
Illustrated talk by Michèle Barrett about this exciting new Woolf resource. The WoolfNotes project (WoolfNotes.com) was developed by Michèle Barrett, in collaboration with Brenda Silver, who in 1983 published an extensive index to Woolf’s reading notebooks. These notebooks, and many other materials related to Woolf’s own reading and research, have been digitised to a high standard and presented in an innovative and user-friendly website.
Michèle Barrett is Professor Emeritus (Modern Literary and Cultural Theory) in the English Department at Queen Mary, University of London. Her work on Woolf, and many other projects, are described at michelebarrett.com
Tickets £6 (members only)
Email membershipvwsgb@gmail.com to join the Society, or onlinevwsgb@gmail.com for further information and queries about online events.
RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE TO TICKET HOLDERS

Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury Reading Group

We are pleased to offer this reading group FREE for VWSGB members who want to talk about the works of Virginia Woolf and some of her Bloomsbury friends and contemporaries, to find connections, influences and similarities between them. The meetings will be a mixture of online and face-to-face discussions. Come prepared to tell us about your experience of reading the work, whether it’s your first or your hundredth time! What themes or motifs did you notice? Did anything surprise, delight, perplex or anger you? What do you think are the best parts, and why?
Email membershipvwsgb@gmail.com to join the Society, or onlinevwsgb@gmail.com for further information and queries about the Reading Group.

Mrs Dalloway
Friday 6 June 2025, 5.30pm
In the centenary year, and in the month when it is set, what else could we be reading but Mrs Dalloway?

 

Society events open to non-members

DallowayDay: The Centenary

Saturday 28 June 2025 – NOW SOLD OUT
Hatchards, 187 Piccadilly, London W1J 9LE

Woolf scholar Dr Clara Jones will conduct a guided walk of Virginia Woolf’s beloved Bloomsbury in the morning, followed by speakers at Hatchards, Piccadilly starting at 2pm. Writer Michelle de Kretser will be speaking about her Woolf-inflected novel, Theory & Practice, to fellow novelist Maggie Gee. After a break for book signing, informal meet-the-authors, soft drinks and cupcakes, Professor Mark Hussey will talk to Dr Vara Neverow about his new book, Mrs Dalloway: A Biography. Wine, nibbles and live jazz with Wayne McIntyre and guests showcasing a repertoire from the 1920s.. Members will receive priority booking details and discounts on ticket prices.

 

Other events

Woolf and Politics (Literature Cambridge)

Monthly to June 2025, 6–8pm British time
Join us for live online lectures and seminars on the major works of Virginia Woolf.
Saturday 14 June 2025. Claire Davison on Body Politics and Clothing in Three Guineas (1938)
Fees: £32 (£27 VWSGB members and other concessions)

Mrs. Dalloway: A New Musical

Friday 23 May–Sunday 15 June 2025
Cincinnati Shakepeare Company, Otto M. Budig Theater, 1195 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202, USA

Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel. Book, music and lyrics by Lindsey Augusta Mercer, directed by Sara Clark.

You’re invited to the soirée of the century: a new musical adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s classic novel. It is 1923, and the flu pandemic and the First World War have ravaged Europe, but Clarissa Dalloway is determined to throw the greatest party London has ever seen. While she buys the flowers and makes last-minute preparations, serendipitous reunions force her to confront the past. As she dismantles the façade she tirelessly upholds, she rekindles connections with friends and lovers, awakening her inner desires for the words she never spoke and the paths of love she never took. This is the world premiere of Virginia Woolf’s iconic introspective novel reimagined for the stage as a musical with a sweeping neo-golden age score underpinned with a contemporary folk pop sensibility.

Tickets various prices, available online

Sussex Modernism

Friday 23 May–Sunday 28 September 2025
Towner, Devonshire Park, College Road, Eastbourne BN21 4JJ

Spanning the late nineteenth century to the present, Sussex Modernism interweaves painting, sculpture, film, textiles, literature and music, bringing together artists not usually included within the story of modernism. Curated by Dr Hope Wolf (University of Sussex).

Tickets £9 (concessions available) from the Towner website

Room – A Journey into the Creative Mind of Virginia Woolf

Thursday 29–Friday 30 May 2025, 7.30pm
Jack Studio Theatre, 410 Brockley Road, Brockley, London SE4 2DH

Written and performed by Heather Alexander, directed by Dominique Gerrard, presented by Emul8 Theatre.
‘Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt you can set upon the freedom of my mind!’ University of Cambridge, 1928. Virginia Woolf is abruptly ordered off the grass and refused entry to the library. Her crime? Being a woman. Woolf interrogates the crushing injustice of women living in 1920s Britain. With an incisive mix of integrity and visceral charm, Woolf forms her ideas about Shakespeare’s Sister, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Aphra Behn among others. In this witty, poignant and provocative adaptation, Alexander reminds us that the issues at the heart of A Room of One’s Own remain as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago

Tickets £17 (£15 concessions), available online or from the Box Office: 0333 666 3366.

For There She Was: Centenary Exhibition of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway through the Eyes of Twelve Artists

Tuesday 3–Sunday 8 June 2025
54 The Gallery, Shepherd Market, Mayfair, London W1J 7QX

Saturday 14 June–Saturday 12 July 2025, 10am–5.30pm
David Simon Contemporary, 37 High Street, Castle Cary, Somerset BA7 7AW

Exhibitors:
Chloe Holt FRSA, Sara Ingleby-McKenzie, Steven Hubbard, Victoria Jinivizian NEAC, Alice Mumford RWA, Emma Rose, Mike Service, Richard Twose, The Chelsea Potter, Sue Wales, Frances Watts, Neil Wood

Celebrating the centenary of the publication of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, David Simon Contemporary has invited contemporary visual artists to respond to the novel. This captivating exhibition of paintings, sculpture and ceramics includes work by Chloe Holt FRSA, Victoria Jinivizian NEAC, Alice Mumford RWA, Sue Wales, Frances Watts and ceramics by the Chelsea Potter, who have each immersed themselves in the timeless themes and motifs of Woolf’s masterpiece.

Happy Birthday Mrs. Dalloway

Saturday 7 June 2025, 11am–3pm
Irish Writers Centre, 19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, D01 E102

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, which turns 100 this year, depicts a single day in June from the perspective of a number of characters. To mark the centenary, writer Belinda McKeon presents a conference celebrating Woolf’s masterpiece. Panels and discussions will be held in the Irish Writers Centre (Dublin), with novelists, poets and essayists for whom Woolf’s novel remains a deeply important influence. Guests include Claire-Louise Bennett, Mary Cregan, Naoise Dolan, Belinda McKeon, Nuala O’Connor and Emilie Pine.

Tickets €50 (€40 members/concessions) from Irish Writers Centre website

Celebrating 100 Years of Mrs Dalloway

Friday 13 June 2025, 7pm
The Cinema Museum, 2 Dugard Way, Renfrew Rd, London SE11 4TH

Join the London Literary Salon at the amazing Cinema Museum for a special showing of The Hours, the 2002 film based on Michael Cunningham’s novel portraying the lives of three women facing heart-breaking realities at different times, their stories bound together by Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway. The evening will begin with a presentation and discussion about the relationship of The Hours to Mrs Dalloway with LitSalon founder Toby Brothers and Woolf scholar Karina Jakubowicz (producer of Literature Cambridge’s Virginia Woolf Podcast and the Substack Woolf in the World), who will explore how Woolf’s vision has been reconsidered and interpreted across time and in different genres.

Tickets £15 from the London Literary Salon website

RSL Presents: A Century of Mrs Dalloway

Wednesday 18 June 2025, 7–8.30pm
Pigott Theatre, British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB (and online)

In her diary, Virginia Woolf revealed that the aspiration for her novel Mrs Dalloway was to ‘give life and death, sanity and insanity … criticize the social system, and to show it … at its most intense.’ This year marks the centenary of the publication of the book. The novel, which takes place around London on a Wednesday in mid-June, shaped the Modernist literary landscape and its impact endures. Writing in The Guardian in 2016, Elaine Showalter called for a ‘Dalloway Day’ to be celebrated each year on a Wednesday in mid-June. Where better to mark this year’s Dalloway Day than the British Library, where draft manuscripts of the text, originally titled ‘The Hours’, are housed? Join Improbable Theatre Director, Phelim McDermott, scholars Merve Emre and Elaine Showalter and other guests for a panel addressing the enduring legacy of Mrs Dalloway and the particular inspiration of the text in their work.

Tickets
In-person event £12 (concessions available)
Online event £6.50
See the British Library website for further information and bookings

Woolf and Dissidence: 34th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference

Friday 4 July 2025, King’s College London
Pre-conference event: visit to the King’s Archives and a panel discussion on ‘Virginia Woolf: Creative Engagements’ with contemporary writers and artists speaking about their multimedia engagements with Woolf’s writing. Speakers include Jo Hamya, Olivia Laing and Kabe Wilson.

Saturday 5–Tuesday 8 July 2025, University of Sussex, UK
On 5 July keynote speakers will be Professor Madelyn Detloff and Professor Anne Fernald. An exciting programme of events is planned, including a performance of Between the Acts, events to mark the centenary of Mrs Dalloway, a conversation with Kim Jones and Charlie Porter, and a house tour and banquet at Charleston. Claire Nicholson will chair a panel to celebrate the VWSGB’s 25th anniversary, and there will be a tribute to co-founder Stuart Clarke. There will also be a post-conference visit to Monks House, as well as the option of trips to local exhibitions.

In the centenary year of the publication of Mrs Dalloway it is fitting that the 34th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference returns to the UK and to two locations with strong Woolfian connections: King’s College London, where Woolf studied as a teenager, and Sussex, home to Monks House and Charleston. Our theme also honours the history of the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence, founded by Alan Sinfield and Jonathan Dollimore, at the University of Sussex. The Centre’s pioneering work in sexuality and queer studies provides a fitting context for the Woolf conference.

Organised by Helen Tyson (University of Sussex), with Clara Jones and Anna Snaith (King’s College London). See the conference website for further information.

Virginia Woolf: Writing Life (Literature Cambridge)

Thursday 10–Monday 14 July 2025

This is the online version of the summer course with Literature Cambridge, consisting of five days (c.3.5 hours per day) of intensive study with lectures, tutorials, talks, discussions and more. Set reading: Mrs Dalloway (1925); To the Lighthouse (1927); Orlando (1928); The Waves (1931); Flush (1933); selected essays on biography. The course can accommodate participants in different time zones through a mixture of live online and pre-recorded material. To get a sense of how it works, please see the blog posts on Literature Cambridge’s website.

Course fees
£590 Full price
£550 VWSGB members
£550 CAMcard holders
£540 Students on a low income

For further information and to book, see the website or email info@literaturecambridge.co.uk

Virginia Woolf: Writing Life (Literature Cambridge)

Sunday 20–Friday 25 July 2025
Clare Hall, Herschel Road, Cambridge CB3 9AL (for classes)
Residence: Robinson College, Cambridge, or residence of your own choosing

This is the in-person version of the summer course with Literature Cambridge, consisting of five days of intensive study in Cambridge, with lectures, tutorials, talks, visits and more. Arrive in Cambridge Sunday afternoon 20 July; depart Saturday morning 26 July 2025. Set reading: Mrs Dalloway (1925); To the Lighthouse (1927); Orlando (1928); The Waves (1931); Flush (1933); selected essays on biography.

Course fees
£1,300 Full price
£1,200 VWSGB members
£1,200 CAMcard holders
£1,150 Students on a low income

For further information and to book, see the website or email info@literaturecambridge.co.uk

Virginia Woolf and Our Future: Mrs Dalloway’s Centennial and Beyond – Call for Papers

6th Japan–Korea International Virginia Woolf Conference
Saturday 23 August 2025
Tsuru Humanities Center (THMC), Tsuru University, 3-8-1 Tahara, Tsuru, Yamanashi, Japan

Jointly organised by the Virginia Woolf Society of Japan and the Virginia Woolf Society of Korea. The aim of the conference is to think about our future by reappraising the works of Virginia Woolf. Professor Max Saunders, Interdisciplinary Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham, will give a lecture on ‘The Future and the Novel in the 1920s’.

Conference language is English. Oral presentations will be twenty minutes and the question period ten minutes. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
• modernism
• war, violence and peace
• life writing
• narratives around care and age
• anthropocene and environment
• technology and networking
• biopolitics and bioethics
• literature, visual arts, music and other forms of art

Submissions: please send the title of your paper, an abstract of 250 words and a five-line biography, plus contact details, to the conference organising committee at jk.vwoolf.conference@gmail.com by 31 March 2025. Non-members may apply for presentations and participations if they have a referral from a member of either society.
For more information, download pdf from the VWSJ website.

Orts, Scraps and Fragments: Thoughts on Peace in Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts

Saturday 6 September 2025, 6–8pm BST (live online)

Part of the Lectures for Peace series, with speaker Claire Davison. We have a regular lecture to support refugee charities: this year for the people of Gaza and those working for peace. All proceeds to be shared between three charities.
• Oxfam Gaza and Lebanon Campaign (food and medical relief to Gaza and Lebanon)
• Standing Together (Palestinian and Israeli joint peace campaign, currently taking aid into Gaza)
• Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group (helping refugees in the UK)
In 2024 we raised £2,100. Very many thanks for your support.

Fees: £33 (£27 VWSGB members and other concessions)

The Waves (study trip)

Sunday 28 September-Wednesday 1 October 2025

The London Literary Salon invites Virginia Woolf devotees to join a group reading The Waves on a study trip to St Ives, Cornwall, enjoying one of the places she loved and in which she spent significant parts of her childhood. Study is led by Toby Brothers, founder of the LitSalon, and facilitator Sarah Snoxall.

Cost £560 per person for four days: see the LitSalon website

Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour

Until Tuesday 30 September 2025, Wednesday–Sunday/Bank Holiday Monday, 10am–5pm
Charleston in Lewes, Southover Road, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1FB

Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 1879–1961) was a key figure in twentieth-century British art and played a central role in the Bloomsbury group. This exhibition – the largest-ever solo show of Bell’s work – will provide an overview spanning the artist’s illustrious career, from the Friday Club to Omega Workshops. The exhibition will include all aspects of her practice across fine and applied art. Alongside a significant, carefully selected display of over 70 paintings will be drawings, furniture, ceramics and designs; in all, more than 120 items. Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour is organised by Charleston in partnership with MK Gallery.

See the website for further information and for ticket prices.

The Voyage Out (study trip)

Friday 3-Monday 6 October 2025

An opportunity to read and discuss The Voyage Out during a study trip to St Ives, Cornwall, with the London Literary Salon in the company of other Woolf enthusiasts. Led by LitSalon founder Toby Brothers and facilitator Sarah Snoxall, the group will consider the early development of Virginia Woolf’s unique and innovative modernist style.

Cost £560 per person for four days: see the LitSalon website

36th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference

Thursday 17–Sunday 20 June 2027 (pre-conference events Wednesday 16 June).
Oslo National Academy of the Arts
Organised by Ane Thon Knutsen. Further details to follow.

 

Monks House

Rodmell, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 3HF
Monks House is closed until March 2025, after which visits must be pre-booked (includes National Trust members).

Explore the country retreat of the novelist Virginia Woolf, where she wrote many of most celebrated novels. Leonard and Virginia’s personalities saturate the house and it should feel as if they have just stepped out for a walk. You can explore the house at your own speed and there are room guides on hand to help you to bring the house alive. The beautiful English country garden was designed by Leonard Woolf and has incredible views of the Sussex Downs. Virginia Woolf was greatly influenced by the garden wrote many of her major works in her writing lodge. Her short story ‘The Orchard’ was inspired by the garden. With the tranquility of the Sussex Downs through the window and the garden surrounding her, it was the perfect place to write.

Facilities
There is a small shop selling guidebooks, postcards and some second-hand books. Outdoor privy located in the garden. Dogs are permitted in the garden on a lead, but there are no dog bins at the property. There is a small parking area for cars and bicycles nearby, and the Abergavenny Arms in Rodmell serves tea, coffee and cake when Monks House is open.

Tickets £9.50/£10.50 adult, £4.75/£5.30 child (National Trust members free), on sale every Thursday for bookings for the following four weeks.
For more information, see the Monks House website

Volunteer guides
Would you like to be a volunteer guide at Monks House? Meet other Woolf enthusiasts and work, surrounded by Bloomsbury treasures, in the house where Virginia and Leonard Woolf lived for so many years. Training will be provided. Read more about volunteering for us. If you’re interested, please phone 01273 474760 or email monkshouse@nationaltrust.org.uk

Charleston

Charleston, Firle, East Sussex BN8 6LL
Open Wednesday–Sunday/Bank Holiday Monday, 10am–5pm

Visit Charleston to explore the art and lives of artists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and their contemporaries. Almost as soon as they moved to Charleston in 1916, Bell and Grant began to paint. Not just the walls, but on every surface imaginable, transforming the house into a living, breathing work of art. Over the following decades, Charleston became a gathering point for some of the twentieth century’s most radical artists, writers and thinkers known collectively as the Bloomsbury group. It is where they lived out their progressive social and artistic ideals. Today, it continues to be a place that brings people together to engage with art and ideas.

A visitor assistant will accompany you around the house as you explore the individually designed and hand-painted rooms. Entry to the galleries and the house is by timed ticket and pre-booking is recommended. The shop, café and garden are available to visit without purchasing a ticket. To book, see the website and for events, see the What’s On page. You can shop online at the Charleston shop web page.

Tickets £22.50 (concessions available; Friends of Charleston free)

 

Promoting your event

We would be happy to tell members about your Virginia Woolf event, feature it on this page and post about it on our social media pages (Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram) if you are willing to email the following to onlinevwsgb@gmail.com. Please note that we need the full details: if we don’t receive them, we have to do your research ourselves. In a busy period this may not be possible.

For website/member message:
Title of event
Day / date / time
Full address & postcode
Brief description
Ticket price and how to book
Contact email / phone no.
Web address (in full) for more info
–Events are listed in date order and will be deleted when expired, so please make sure all the relevant details appear for each event separately.

For Facebook, as above, plus at least one image. For X/Twitter, please provide a short post no longer than 280 characters (including spaces), and for Instagram, a 100-word paragraph plus image. Please make sure that these include the date of your event and contact details.

 

Payment (VWSGB events only)

First, book your place at the event by emailing eventsvwsgb@gmail.com

Next, pay for the event by online banking, PayPal, credit/debit card or cheque (sterling only).

1) For online payments, please use the following details.
Bank: Santander
Account Name: Virginia Woolf Society GB
Account No.: 40411044
Sort Code: 09 06 66

2) If you wish to pay by PayPal, please email for details. You may need to add a little extra to cover costs.

3) If you wish to pay by credit/debit card, you can email for a PayPal invoice. You will then be able to pay by Visa/Visa Debit/Visa Electron, Mastercard, Discover, UnionPay, Maestro or American Express.

4) Make out a cheque to ‘Virginia Woolf Society’ and email for details.

 

Reference: for all payment types, please indicate the event plus your surname (e.g. AGM22 SMITH), so that we can match up the payment with the contact details provided.