TV star ready to explore complex relationship with mother

Best-selling author and TV writer, actress and presenter Emma Kennedy will speak about the woman she called mum at the Wolverhampton Literature Festival as she talks about her new book "Letters from Brenda".

The talk on Sunday, February 5 at Wolverhampton Art Gallery will allow Emma, who has appeared on shows such as Goodness Gracious Me and Miranda and who won Celebrity Masterchef in 2012, to detail the life and complicated relationship she had with her mother.

She said: "I had a very complicated relationship with my mum, who suffered from a undiagnosed mental illness for all of her life.

"She was the most exciting, enigmatic and brilliant person I think I've ever known and had charisma to burn, but she also had a very dark side and there was good Brenda and bad Brenda and you never knew which Brenda you were going to get.

"That cloud sort of hung over all of us for my entire life and when she died, I was left with all those feelings that you're left with when someone you had a complicated relationship with is gone, as well as dealing with all of the grief."

In the book, Emma says she and her family had started to make peace with who Brenda was, but said that changed after her father had sold the family home and the new occupant discovered two suitcases with about 75 letters inside.

She said it was a chance to go on a voyage of discovery and finally learn more about what her mother had actually suffered from and said the book was a chance to set the record straight about her mother and her life and illness.

She said: "I've written lots of fiction books, but I really love non-fiction, and although this is probably one of the saddest things I've ever had to write, it's also really funny in places.

"I think it's really important when you're looking at someone's whole life, and I was mindful of this when writing the book, to tell the whole story and I talked about some really difficult and personal things.

"However, I wanted to be fair as well and while this book is essentially about her mental illness, it's also about how funny she was and how brilliant she was and it's really important to give a balanced view of who she was.

"Something amazing that did happen after I wrote the manuscript was that I sent it off to a clinical psychiatrist to read, just to make sure that I wasn't saying anything that was wrong or irresponsible.

"He did an amazing thing that I and my family never expected as he wrote a letter which diagnosed her one and for all and which is in the epilogue at the end of the book, so you will discover what she was suffering from."

"Letters from Brenda" takes place on Sunday, February 5 at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, starting at 1pm, with tickets starting at £7.50.

To find out more and to book tickets, go to wolvesliteraturefestival.co.uk/events/emma-kennedy-letters-from-brenda.html