Maria McErlane: Bumps in the Road – a memoir: Life and adventure in bike-size chunks - Maidstone LitFest 2024

About

For Maria, navigating life in all its glory has been accompanied by a steady stream of bicycles.

No rule book, just a love of the new and a passion for the open road.

Maria details a warm and witty, sometimes difficult ride through childhood, friendships, wealth, fame, reinvention, love and loss.

Each bike, each revolution, has contributed to her own evolution and the lessons she has learned along the way.

Bumps in the Road gives us the same honesty and humour Maria employs for the many listeners seeking advice in her thirteen years as an agony aunt with Graham Norton.

The wheel goes up and the wheel goes down. Happy or sad, life is full of joy, mishaps and annoying obstacles. It’s important to get back in the saddle, keep pedalling up that hill and freewheeling down the other side!

 Reviews:

‘As heart-wrenchingly moving as it is laugh-out-loud funny.’

Nigella Lawson

‘Brutally, hilariously, scandalously honest. I inhaled it in one sitting.’

Caroline Quentin

‘I’ve known Maria for over thirty years but apparently I’ve only talked about myself, because I scarcely knew anything of these fascinating, hilarious and heartbreaking stories.’

Graham Norton

“Funny, frank and fearless. A puncture repair kit for life.”

Paddy O’ Connell – Broadcasting House, BBC Radio 4

“Warm, heartfelt and unfailingly charming.”

Adam Kay – author of This is Going to Hurt

“Endlessly interesting, a skilled storyteller, Maria’s honesty is very comforting and her positivity is inspiring.”

Marian Keyes

AUTHOR

Maria McErlane is an actor, writer and broadcaster.

She spent five years as a columnist on the Sunday Times, covered restaurant reviews and wrote multiple features. She has written for the Sunday Telegraph, the Mail on Sunday, the Evening Standard and had a monthly column for Esquire magazine.

Her television credits are many, including The Fast Show, Killing Eve, Eastenders, Fat Friends, HIGNFY, Holby Cityand ten years as the voice of Eurotrash.

She has worked as a broadcaster on BBC Radio 2 and is well known for her weekly contributions on the long-running Graham Norton show as an agony aunt in the ‘Grill Graham’ slot.

She has written and presented radio documentaries and appeared on a variety of shows for Radio 4 including Just a Minute, Foul Play and the News Quiz.

For the past three years Maria has worked as the weekend agony aunt at Virgin Radio with Graham Norton.

Maria lives in Hastings, has a toy poodle, a paddle board and swims in the sea all year round.

She has two bicycles that are rarely out of use.

This is her first book.