A House for Jane: Celebrating Austen 250 – Helen Mort

in conversation with Rachel Bower

14 October, 2025 at 6:00 pm

Off the Shelf commissioned a poem from award-winning Sheffield poet Helen Mort to celebrate 250 years since the birth of Jane Austen. The poem, A House for Jane, takes the idea of stanza-as-room to build Jane Austen a series of imaginary spaces in a conversation between past and present. How do women create and build in cultural climates which may subtly try to oppose or invalidate them? What do women need to be creative? What could we build together? Helen will read her new poem and from her other work and discuss Austen’s legacy.

Helen Mort is an award-winning author based in Sheffield. Her poetry collections are Division Street, No Map Could Show Them and The Illustrated Woman which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. She is the author of novel, Black Car Burning and non-fiction book A Line Above The Sky.

Rachel Bower is an award-winning author and poet from Bradford. Her debut novel, It Comes from the River, and third poetry collection, Bee, have both been published in 2025.