5 Reasons why you need to apply for City University's Novel Studio

There are just 20 days left to get your application in to City’s Novel Studio 2021 Programme…

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Here’s why you should apply…

1. The course has a proven track record. Alumni include Award-winning authors Deepa Anappara, Hannah Begbie, and Harriet Tyce, amongst many others.

2. It’s practical. Each module has been designed to support you in writing your novel, from developing your plot to character motivation.

3. The tutors are brilliant: Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone and Kiare Ladner are both professional writers, editors and creative writing teachers who really know their onions and want to help you become better writers.

4. It has great links with the publishing industry. Each year students are trained in rehearsed readings towards an end-of-year show to an invited audience of literary agents.

5. There’s one fully-funded space available for a talented writer from a low-income household via their scholarship scheme.

Apply before 30 April 2021

Monique Roffey wins Costa Book Award 2020

We were delighted to hear that Monique Roffey had won the Costa Book Award 2020 for her novel The Mermaid of Black Conch. Published by Peepal Tree press, this is Roffey’s sixth novel and a thing of pure beauty: a deeply moving love story between local fisherman, David Baptiste, and the mermaid he first lays eyes on one morning off Murder Bay: 

‘David was strumming his guitar and singing to himself when she first raised her barnacled, seaweed-clotted head from the flat, grey sea, its stark hues of turquoise not yet stirred.’ 

This barnacled creature, we later discover, is Aycayia, an indigenous woman turned into a mermaid many years before by her own women in a jealous attempt to stop her beguiling their men. 

Costa Book Award winner 2021, The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey

Later, when Aycayia is yanked from the sea by American tourists as part of a macho fishing competition and strung up on the harbour for all to see – ‘her head hanging downwards, her deadly hair trailing, her arms lashed with rope behind her back, her breasts naked’ – we do not expect a happy ending . But Roffey has written a subversive tale. In Baptiste’s care, Aycayia is rescued, and nurtured. She sheds her fish scales and her tale, she learns to speak, and she once more, exercising, and enjoying, her considerable powers over the fisherman. 

But as local suspicions grow around the new ‘woman’ seen near Baptiste’s home, and Aycayia experiences strange echoes of the ancient curse – in one epic scene, fish begin to rain down from the sky, an act Aycayia feels sure is connected to the curse – she asks David to take her back to the sea. 

With a clever structure, a vivid cast of characters – from Porthos, the corrupt policeman, to Miss Rain, the complicated landowner and Miss Priscilla, the brilliantly nasty neighbour – and the kind of exquisitely rich language that makes you yearn to see the landscapes and people Roffey describes, The Mermaid of Black Conch is one of those novels that will capture your heart and make you want to return to it again, and again. 

City Writes Spring 2021 Competition Open

City Writes, City University of London’s termly writing competition, is open for submissions.

Kiare Ladner’s debut Novel, Nightshift

Past and present City University London short course writing students: City Writes is back and looking for your fiction or non-fiction. Selected and hosted by the brilliant Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone, one of The Book Edit’s editors, this term's event will feature guest author Kiare Ladner whose debut novel, the devastatingly good Nightshift, is due out in February with Picador. To join her 'on stage', full competition details are here.

For anyone wanting to attend, it's free, online and lots of fun, just register here.

Deadline for submissions: Friday 5th March

City Writes Spring Event on Zoom: Thursday 1st April at 7pm

Good luck!

Some of 2020's better news...

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We all know how bad 2020 has been. No one needs reminding. So this is in praise of some better news: five fabulous authors, all friends of The Book Edit, who happened to publish their novels in 2020…

Deepa Anappara’s debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, was published in January 2020 by Chatto & Windus. Before publication, the book won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, and the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel; post-publication it’s been shortlisted for the JCB prize and long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Told through the eyes of nine-year-old Jai, a reality cop show enthusiast and amateur sleuth, the novel adopts a lighter touch to tell a much darker tale surrounding the disappearance of local children. A brilliant and beautifully observed novel from a mesmerisingly talented writer.

Deepa Anappara’s debut novel

Harriet Tyce’s second novel, the psychological thriller The Lies You Told, was published by Wildfire in August 2020. As with Tyce’s first novel, the best-selling Blood Orange, this novel once again showcases her ability to grip readers and keep them guessing, right until the last page. Taut, skilfully plotted and fiercely intelligent, the book satirises the hideously competitive parental politics in an exclusive London school and keeps you reading through the night.

Harriet Tyce’s second novel, The Lies You Told

Hannah Begbie’s second novel

Luke Butler’s debut novel

Hannah Begbie’s second book, Blurred Lines, was published by Harper Collins in August 2020. Told through the eyes of Becky, assistant to Matthew Kingsman, one of the UK film industry’s most successful producers, Begbie’s novel shines a light on the film industry’s darker truths. A compelling story of power, trust and revenge, searingly astute and stylishly written, Begbie’s second book is destined to be a classic of the #metoo era and confirms her arrival as one-to-watch.

Luke Butler’s debut historical novel, Living Inside Raindrops, was published by The Book Guild in July 2020. Opening in a lunatic asylum in 1917, the novel is a coming-of-age story about twelve-year-old Jimmy, a dreamer desperate to escape his small town in Essex and make it to the Western Front. Charming and life-affirming, the novel explores the complexities of mental health, the strength of the human spirit and the power of love.

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Rebecca Ley’s debut novel, For When I’m Gone, a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, was published by Orion in September 2020. Cleverly narrated through the handbook a mother, Sylvia - a vivid, complicated protagonist - writes for her husband, to guide him after she’s gone, the novel explores the agony of grief and the importance of letting go. Exquisitely written with an exceptional eye for detail - Ley is particularly good at the crushing minutiae of daily parenting - this is one of those novels that stays with you long after the reading.

Farewell, 2020.

May 2021 bring plenty better news for everyone.

Deepa Anappara on City Writes

The Book Edit’s very own Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone hosts a special City Writes tomorrow with guest author Deepa Anappara. Deepa will be reading from her brilliant, prize-winning debut novel Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line and will be joined live on Zoom by competition winners Lucy Blincoe, Nola D’Enis, Richard Bowyer, Emma Dooley, Suzanne Farg and Marta Michalowska.

It promises to be a wonderful night of storytelling. Just what we all need on a cold winter’s evening.

Register here to join Rebekah, Deepa and the competition winners on Zoom tomorrow night, 9 December, 6.45pm