Backstory is the story behind the story—where the protagonists have been, what they've experienced, why they are where they are. It’s the literary ingredient that thickens the plot and enlivens the narrative. It's how we get to know—and connect with—a book's characters.
But [backstory] isn't just for books.
Unearthing others' backstories is one of the best parts of living a life abroad: What brought you here? And maybe as importantly, what’s kept you here?
[backstory] bookshop is where you can get to know—and connect with—characters, both on and off the page. It's the inclusive, community-centered space where swerving paths, bold decisions, and happy accidents can intersect.
Lauren Currie, founder of UPFRONT, invites you to celebrate the launch of her bestselling book — an evening of honest stories (the kind you don't normally hear on a stage), practical tools you'll use the very next day, and a room full of brilliant humans who are done with the old rules.
✨ What's included
A live reading and short talk from Lauren
Confidence tools you can use immediately
Q&A and audience moments
Connection and book signing, with books available to buy on the night
Hosted by speaker and coach Nat Pearce
About the author
Lauren Currie OBE is an entrepreneur, best-selling author of Be UPFRONT: 24 Rules For Life Changing Confidence, and a global voice on confidence as a tool for economic justice. She is the Founder of UPFRONT, a company redefining confidence as a core leadership competency essential to culture change, equity, and performance. UPFRONT’s flagship programme, The Bond, has upskilled 15,000+ women across 50+ countries and is trusted by organisations including Nike, Spotify, and the Ministry of Defence.
Lauren believes confidence is not a personality trait, it’s a social and economic lever. She has spent the last decade building businesses, products, and ideas that prove it. She was awarded an OBE for services to design and diversity, named one of the UK’s top businesswomen under 35, and spent seven years as Chair of the UK’s leading maternity discrimination charity, Pregnant Then Screwed.
Her children’s book, Taylor Meets The Trick, helps young people and the adults around them name the patriarchy for what it is and begin to unlearn it together.
She grew up in Kilmarnock in Scotland and now lives in Uppsala in Sweden with her family.
About the speaker: Arianna Afsari is a translator and doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). She examines Argentine militant poetry of the 1960s and 70s alongside traditions of Persian militant poetics deployed as tools of anticolonial resistance. Afsari works across three languages: Persian, Spanish, and Russian. As a translator, she has published English translations of selected poems and a preface from Juan Gelman’s book, Dibaxu, in the literary translation journal, Absinthe: World Literature in Translation (December 2023).
