Atypical Girl - In conversation with Penny Kiley 
Plus DJ set in the Star Café & Bar with Eric's DJ, Norman Killon

5 March 2026, from 7.30pm

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We're delighted to welcome music writer Penny Kiley to the British Music Experience for the launch of her memoir Atypical Girl.

 

Penny was Liverpool correspondent for Melody Maker during the post-punk years of the last 1970s and early 80s, wrote for Smash Hits and was also pop columnist for the Liverpool Echo. She was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 60 and Atypical Girl begins as a coming of age story and ends as a midlife intervention. What unites them is a search for identity and the role that music plays in all our lives.

 

In 1977 and punk has hit Liverpool. The legendary Eric's club is home to the city's rebels, posers and misfits. It's a place of attitude, adventure and new possibilities. Some become pop stars, Penny Kiley becomes a music journalist. The story traces Penny's relationship with the music scene from the turbulent political 1980s into the changing culture of the 21st century. Throughout the years, she never stops being a misfit and the question remains: how do you navigate normal life when punk is dead and you don't know you're autistic?

 

Penny will be in conversation with award-winning Liverpool writer and lecturer Jeff Young, plus there will be a DJ set in the museum cafe bar from resident Eric's DJ Norman Killon.

 

Atypical Girl is published by Birlinn Ltd and copies will be on sale on the night for Penny to sign.

 

All tickets £12 (books sold separately)

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