City Hall in the heart of New York or a storied house at the edge of the Scottish mainland, a story’s location evokes feelings in a reader before the plot even unfolds. Is it because we recognise that the anonymity that cities offer, for example, can give birth to the kinds of stories that small towns can’t? But what stories emerge when place and time intersect? In Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock, three women’s lives are explored over centuries, while Niven Govinden’s This Brutal House looks at two generations of marginalised denizens of a most vibrant city. Two writers at the height of their powers addressing injustice over time, chaired by journalist Anita Sethi.