ASPIRING writers have the chance to read their unpublished work to an audience at a free event in Hampshire on Friday night.

The Midnight Read is part of the Lollapaloosa event at the University of Winchester, put on by the organisers of the Winchester Writers’ Festival.

The evening – in The Vault on the university’s main campus in Sparkford Road – will start at 7.30pm with a panel of six editors, agents and authors who will answer questions on writing, editing and marketing books, chaired by poet Keith Bennett.

From 8.30pm-9.30pm, MA students will read from their recently published book, The Vortex.

Then from 9.30pm to midnight, people can read their unpublished work – poetry, short stories or parts of scripts – for three minutes and receive critical comment from the audience.