Tag: Deepa Anappara (page 1 of 2)

Starry Night: The Novel Studio Showcase 2024

July 9, 2024 / / 0 Comments

 

 

Alumna Anna Mazzola introducing the evening of readings

By Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

There’s nothing like a Showcase reading event filled to the brim with new creative writing talent and this year’s Novel Studio 2024 Showcase was a scintillating night to remember. Who needs the excitement of the election when you can listen to fourteen authors, just graduated from the year-long Novel Studio course, reading from their novels-in-progress? What a treat.

We began by celebrating the fabulous talent of the Novel Studio’s alumni. From long-term course supporter and founder of the Novel Studio Scholarship, Harriet Tyce, through Novel Studio tutor, Karia Ladner, Deepa Anappara, Elizabeth Chakrabarty, Hannah Begbie, Attiya Khan, Katharine Light, Greg Keen, all the way to Lara Haworth whose debut, Monumenta, came out the same night as the Showcase and Jo Cunningham whose debut, Death By Numbers, comes out next month. This wonderful list keeps growing and we were lucky enough to hear from another alumna, Anna Mazzola next. Having published her fifth historical thriller, The Book of Secrets, earlier this year, Anna has her first legal thriller, Notes on a Drowning, out next year with Orion. She gave a wonderful endorsement for the course, not only for the craft skills it nurtures but for the importance of creating links with other writers who can share your journey and for the connections to the industry that events like the Showcase and the Anthology can bring. Anna always lights up a room, virtual or in-person, with her vibrant energy. It was a great message of realistic but enthusiastic well-wishing to the students in the early days of their writing careers.

Before we heard from the students, we wanted to thank City academic George Politis for taking on the Novel Studio Scholarship scheme for the next five years. Now known as The Captain Tasos Politis Scholarship after George’s late father who was a passionate supporter of education, the scholarship provides a fully funded place for one successful applicant to the course from a low-income household. Thank you, George!

With all this good will behind them, we began the readings with Darinka Aleksic who read from the opening of her novel, Afterglow, as her protagonist Kay, a forty-something mother of three, takes her first exploratory trip with psychedelic drugs in an effort to cure her depression. The wry voice of Kay with its compelling dark humour left us all eager to find out what would happen next.

NOVEL STUDIO CLASS OF 2024

We went from Islington to Notting Hill next, dabbling our toes into the romance of MJ Hershaw’s novel, Terms of Agreement. Sitting with Charlotte in her flat, we were stunned to hear her grouchy neighbour Aiden ring her bell and ask a very unexpected favour. Would she be his girlfriend? It was hard to pick up our jaws and move on but we went from one surprise request to a futuristic hook up next with Darren Wimhurst, reading to us from his novel, Business as Usual.

Darren took us into the not-so-distant future of a sexercise class with haptic suits and sex bots. The awkwardness of the encounter for his character, Kurt, wasn’t virtual at all. What a sharply affecting and darkly funny extract from a spell-binding and politically sharp speculative novel.

From the near future to an alternative present, we delved into Ani Bazil’s Young Adult novel, Unravelling Reality, next where humans are not quite what they seem. Ani tantalised us with a prologue in which a body is left for dead – though we see their finger twitch – and an opening chapter in which some kind of trick is about to take place, putting a group of letchy, rowdy men in their place.

Left wondering what was about to happen, we went from a London pub to a charity piano recital next as Amanda Bolt read from her novel, A Life in the Past Tense. We listened as Caroline’s dreams of restarting her pianist career were interrupted by the news of the death of her parents in a car crash.

From the hush of loss, to the excitement of a teenage girl released into the world after lockdown, we were taken to Harrogate next as Margaret Rogerson read from her novel, I Came of Age, Twice. Margaret took us into the heat and confusion of those early days when lockdown was lifted. Her protagonist Charlotte made it halfway down the road with her dad, waylaid by a neighbour cleaning his car, his family visible behind him lounging in a large paddling pool and passing round a spliff. Eventually, Charlotte manages to march on to the park, her dad stumbling back to the house, defeated by it all.

We took a turn back to Surrey in 1995 next with Lesley-Jane Easles-Reynolds who read from her novel, It Could Happen to You. We listened in on a conversation between Sam and her brother as they discussed the strangeness of their small inheritance from recently deceased cousins who had promised to leave them all their wealth. Burdened by debt, Sam is both desperate for the money and desperately upset at the deaths of her cousins. What has gone on?

From fishy, underhand, financial dealings to a ship on the Nile, we jetted off to Egypt next with S Ross and a moment of shipbound contemplation as she read from her novel, Emmy. Such a lyrical piece, her character Emmy sits listening to the call to prayer and contemplating her late marriage, suddenly ended when Emmy discovered John had been cheating on her for years. Could she still pray after all that had happened?

Taking a moment to soak up the emotional complexity, we went from the Nile to Reading with Joe Gallard as he read from his comic novel, Alan and the AI. Alan is late for work and despite being disarmed by the charm of his new neighbour Nat, who had inspired him to write poetry it was probably best he never shared, he struggles to say anything meaningful and heads out into the rain.

Giggling away, we were transported to fantasy land of magic and mayhem next with Deliliah Miller’s middle grade fantasy novel, Between Wind and Water. We listened as Atha’s magic was somehow released and enhanced to devastating effect by a book that falls from the shelf of a wonderful library in the land of Draoidheil. What evil has Atha unwittingly released?

Caught in the drama, we had to tear ourselves away from the magic of fantasy to a child’s fantastic interpretation of a nighttime car journey next as W H Marie read from his novel, My Shadow, My Brother. The motorway drive turns lamplight into starlight and the car into a rocket hurtling through space. Will’s reading was tender and heartfelt, the mother of the story a figure whose eyes flash different colours to reflect her mood.

We went up to Scotland next for some timely comedic relief with Emma Warrick’s novel, The Husband Freezer. Emma showed us a typical morning at the charity as her protagonist, Margaret went about cleaning the loos and contemplating the sorry state of her sex life. She couldn’t even find the time or place for a fiddle with her rampant rabbit.

Next up, Jill Craig took us to Northern Ireland with a reading from her novel, The Weight of the World. We were gripped by a painfully raw and intimate scene in which Jill’s characters, Rory and Camille argue over implications of bringing children into a flooding, burning world. Desire and anger, exhaustion and bitterness left both the characters and the audience in a state of longing.

Our emotions heightened we were off to France next with our last reader, Flora Tonking, reading from her mystery novel, Chosen Family. Set in a beautiful countryside chateau, Alex is woken on Christmas morning by a shriek coming from the bathroom. What has happened? Who is on the bathroom floor? As with all the wonderful novels of the evening, you’ll have to wait for the novel to be published to find out!

Ending on a hook was the perfect conclusion to an evening of fantastic readings. With some further words of thanks to the Novel Studio team, Emily Pedder and Kiare Ladner; to the wider City University staff, particularly Robert Lastman and Laura Bushell; to George Politis again for his support of the Captain Tasos Politis Scholarship; to brilliant Novel Studio students; and to the audience, we ended on a note of congratulation. Go Novel Studio 2024, we can’t wait to hear of your future success.

These students are writers to watch, but don’t just take my word for it, you can watch a recording of the night, here, and read the wonderful extracts in the Novel Studio Anthology 2024. Congratulations Novel Studio 2024 cohort on a wonderful evening!

Interview with Lara Haworth, author of debut novel Monumenta

June 14, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Author and artist, Lara Haworth

Lara Haworth is a writer, visual artist and filmmaker. In 2018 she was accepted onto City’s flagship year-long novel writing programme, The Novel Studio. She was also the winner that year of our Literary Agent Competition. Always tipped for success, last year Lara sold her debut novel, Monumenta, to Canongate. The novel will be published this summer. We caught up with Lara to find out more about her writing life and her journey to publication.

 

  1. Have you always written?

Yes. As soon as I was able. I wrote my first story aged four in a small notebook on my mother’s desk. Its protagonist was a knight who comes across three forking paths, and cannot decide which one to take. Goodness gracious, I wanted to him to say, as he realises the choice lying ahead. I spelt it goodness gracars.

2. Which book was the first to have a real impact on you as a reader, and which as a writer?

The first book I read that made me realise there was something other than just a story going on was The Great Gatsby. I was eleven. Much of it went over my head, the unrequited love, the critique of wealth, the disillusion. But I remember Fitzgerald describing the ‘silver pepper of the stars’ and looking up at the sky and actually gasping. So that’s what you can do, I realised. And maybe this, too, and this…

Fast forward twenty-three years, and my life is in some disarray. (This is an understatement.) I was visiting friends in Spain and started reading Deborah Levy’s Things I Don’t Want to Know. About three chapters in I felt an overwhelming pressure, as if a dam was breaking somewhere in my heart, or my throat, or my knees. I started to pace up and down and up and down this beach, gripping the book like it was a hand, pulling me up from a deep well. It gave me a kind of ferocious, blistering instruction to write, properly, seriously, now. It said, There is nothing else for you. When I got back from Spain, I applied to the Novel Studio. I still have the book. It has these white-knuckled dents in the cover.

3. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Don’t expect anyone to find you, and your writing, without telling them where you are or what you’re doing. Don’t imagine that this is something you can do on your own. Don’t be frightened. (You will also be frightened.)

4. Why do you write and what makes it so vital for you?

When I’m in the excavating, mining stage, it rolls on a scale between because I have to and because I want to. Sometimes, when the I want to is struggling, because I am tired, or frightened, or stuck, or distracted, the I have to engages more fiercely, as more of a grim-faced imperative, shaking its head and pulling me back to my desk, to my thoughts, my subconscious, until the I want to returns in equal measure, to provide a lift. At its best, they both work together, and that is when you’re flying.

When I’m redrafting and editing, things get bigger, wider. I picture the reader: their joy, their woe, their precious time. If I can illuminate something – a feeling, a place, the way a potato slices open in a ‘90s deli – that impresses on a reader a sense of recognition, and a slightly different way of seeing and thinking about the world, then that is also why I write. There’s politics there too. I write to smuggle in difficult histories, strange emotional realities, and I try to centre queer lives, so long obscured in the literary canon.

5. Do you think writing can be taught? And relatedly, can you tell us a bit about your experience of being on writing courses?

When I was a teenager, I was at a friend’s house, whose father worked in publishing. Over dinner, he went on an extended rant about how you couldn’t teach creative writing, how all his authors had always written, and that was the only thing that could possibly matter. Perhaps because I didn’t know anyone else that worked in publishing and I wanted to be a writer, I really took his words to heart. It was a bad decision. From that moment on I avoided creative writing classes, and chose instead to write alone, in secret, thinking: I’m writing, and this is what I’ve always done! Someone will find me and recognise my labour. They didn’t. And the longer I wrote in secret, the more my fear grew about sharing my work. Every now and then I would submit something to a ridiculously prestigious magazine or journal and then be crushed when I was (inevitably) rejected. A pretty sad cycle, that I thankfully managed, eventually, to break. I wish I had done it sooner.

While I do think that there needs to be some ineffable something to your writing to get the best out of a writing course, there are a whole host of things you simply cannot get on your own. Like, learning how to build a novel, which is architecture. Learning how to edit, how to build pace, when to cut, when to trust your reader, when to give them more. This you learn by submitting your work to be read by your peers. And you’re not ready. But then you become ready. And the readiness grows. And that expectation, that deadline, is generative. It makes you a better writer.

My time on the Novel Studio was completely transformative in this respect. Being read. It was such a relief. Even if the feedback was hard, I would still sometimes feel very emotional on the tube home, seeing all those different handwritings in the margins of my manuscripts. And it was a privilege to read my peers’ writing too – to lose myself in their worlds, and bring my sensibilities as a writer to their work. The course also taught me that books don’t live in a blank space. They’re deeply connected to the world, most pressingly, the publishing world. All of the things that I had so studiously avoided for so long: talking about my work, emailing agents, trying my luck, writing pitches – all had to be done. And it was so very helpful to be given the tools to do this, to knock on all those guarded doors.

6. Can you tell us a bit about your experience of getting a publishing deal? Has anything been surprising, in a good or bad way?!

During the Novel Studio, one of my tutors revealed that her first novel did not get picked up for publication. I remember so vividly the shock I felt, as if she’d reported her own death. I glimpsed how painful that must have been for her. Perhaps because it had been such hard work to even get to that point, it was something I hadn’t considered –– even though the evidence, should I need it, was all around me, told again and again by many of my favourite writers (Hilary Mantel!).

A year and a half later, I was telling the same story. I wasn’t so naive that I thought I would definitely get a publishing deal for my first novel, but it did seem like finishing the final draft and working through more rounds of rolling rejections to get an agent might mean I was finally there. I was, of course, wrong. My first novel was not picked up. It was an extremely painful experience. Loss. A kind of grief. By that point I had gone from extreme secrecy about my writing to extreme exposure – and, in the way of all worst nightmares, my failure was also happening on a very public scale. Everyone knew.

Full credit to my partner, who after watching me mooch around in my depression for a while, said, The only thing that’s going to help now is getting back to work. She was right. I had started writing Monumenta in the summer of 2020. I went back to it in autumn 2021, and within two months it was finished. The rejection had actually sharpened my writing, made me care less about failure. I was able to take more risks. I carved a chunk out of it and submitted it as a short story to the Bridport Prize, and actually won. Very unexpected. This was the catalyst for my agent to submit it to publishers.

I’m still surprised Monumenta got picked up. It doesn’t really conform to any of the silent rules of the industry. It’s short. It’s about monuments, and difficult European history. I couldn’t think of any other books to compare it to. In the end, we had two offers and went with Canongate, who have always been my dream publisher. Securing the deal took two extremely nerve-wracking weeks. Sometimes I still can’t believe it’s real. I think what I’m trying to say with this very long-winded answer is that risk and failure are not just part of the process, they are the process, they influence and change the work in rich and strange ways.

7. Which fiction writers inspire you currently?

Mariana Enriquez. Wendy Erskine. Olga Tokarczuk. Jenny Erpenbeck. Colson Whitehead. Deborah Levy. Kevin Barry. Christina Sharpe. Lan Samantha Chang. Anne Enright. Sebastian Barry.

8. Do you have a particular writing process? Favourite place or time of day to write? Any rituals?

I work best when I have dedicated chunks of time. I’m not, sadly, one of those writers that can write for fifteen minutes in the morning and then get on with their day. It’s a whole day / night thing. It’s all or nothing. I have chosen a more unsettling, unstable line of freelance money earning, so that I can work manically for periods and save up, and take time off to write. This functions in some senses, but during dark nights of the soul it can feel fundamentally unsensible and wrong. When I am writing, I have a target word count every day, and that can take anywhere between two hours and a whole day to achieve. I’m lucky to have my own little writing space in our house, which overlooks the street. So I still see a little bit of life, going by.

9. Are you someone who plans and plots before you write or do you write to discover the story? Or both?!

I start with at least one person (who’s already been talking to me in my head for a while), a place, a primary situation, and a sense of its undertows. But I write to discover. I feel quite strongly that that’s my job – to go to that weird place of half dream and subconscious. A dark, dark forest. It’s a constant tussle between being in control of my material and also letting my material have some control. To let it go. I think that plotting it all out at the start would essentially mean executing a plan, and that’s not really the point, for me. It’s not a report. It’s got to be deeper than that. About a third of the way through I start to see what’s happening, where the loops and patterns and connections are, what the characters are wanting to do, and not do, say, and not say.

10. And to finish, what are you working on now?

Lara’s debut novel, Monumenta

I’m halfway through my third novel, which is called Julie Needs Things. All my novels are different, but this one feels harder than the others. It takes place over a long period of time, it’s told in the first person, it’s set in the UK, it contains some autobiographical elements. Yet it is a work of fiction. I wrestle with telling stories from my own life. I feel, instinctively, that it might not be interesting.

Thank you so much, Lara! To pre-order Lara’s novel, visit HERE. And for more about Lara and her work, visit HERE.

For anyone inspired to join The Novel Studio, applications are now open with a 30 June deadline. Please email any questions to Emily.Pedder.1@city.ac.uk

For all our other short writing courses, please visit HERE.

Here’s a Novel Idea

May 1, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Apply to the Novel Studio and join our growing list of published alumni.

The Novel Studio is City’s flagship novel writing programme which supports 15 selected students to work on their novels for a year.

The course has been the starting point for many successful novelists. From bestselling crime writer Harriet Tyce, whose fourth novel, A Lesson in Cruelty, was published with Wildfire earlier this month—and who generously initiated and funded our Novel Studio scholarship for four years—to debut novelist Lara Haworth, whose first novel, Monumenta, will be published with Canongate this summer, the Novel Studio has become recognised as a place to develop and grow as a writer.

From researching your ideas, plotting and planning to writing, editing and familiarising yourself with the publishing industry, the programme will guide you through the tricky terrain of novel writing.

Taught by established writers and editors, with opportunities to meet literary agents and publishing professionals, if you’re ready to take your novel writing to the next level, this course is for you.

As if that wasn’t enough, we offer a Literary Agent Competition for all successful applicants to the course, run in association with leading agent Lucy Luck at C&W Agency.

And for one talented writer from a low-income household, we have a fully-funded scholarship – The Captain Tasos Politis Scholarship.

Full details on all these opportunities and information on the course are available here.

Or you can apply directly with 2000 words of your fiction and a CV to Emily.Pedder.1@city.ac.uk

Deadline 30th June 5pm.

We look forward to reading your applications!

Writing Short Courses Newsletter Spring 2024

February 29, 2024 / / 0 Comments

It’s pretty cold out still, but the snowdrops are here and spring is just around the corner…promise! For even more cheer, here’s the latest from our writing short course alumni and tutors.

The Novel Studio Alumni

 

Lara Haworth’s debut novel Monumenta is due out with Canongate in July. Pre-order here.

 

Jo Cunningham’s debut cosy crime novel Death by Numbers is due out with Hachette in August. You can pre-order here.

 

Katharine Light has been shortlisted for The Selfies 2024 in the adult fiction category for her novel Like Me.

 

Current Novel Studio student Jill Craig has been published in Eggplusfrog.

 

Peter Forbes’ Narrative Non Fiction alumnus Aniefiok Ekpoudom’s debut Where We Come From: Rap, Home & Hope in Modern Britain, was published by Faber last month. Jimi Famurewa reviewed it in The Evening Standard here.

Alumna Sophie Rutenbar, an expert on Haiti were she has worked, has won an International Affairs Fellowship from the US Council on Foreign Relations and is writing for the prestigious Brookings Institute.

 

Former City tutor Marcelle Bernstein’s Fact Based Storytelling alumnus Steve Young has published a book on Motherwell Cricket Club with Troubador publishing.

 

Susan Grossman’s Travel Writing alumna Yvette Cook has published an article in the Independent about travelling by train to Slovenia and another on Boscastle.

Tutor News

Writing for Children tutor Bryony Pearce has her debut Middle Grade novel, Hannah Messenger and the Gods of Hockwold, coming out in June 6, and she has sold a new YA fiction, Aphrodite (an Aphrodite retelling), which is due out in 2025. 

 

One-day Courses

There are plenty of options for anyone keen on one-day writing courses: our ever-popular Introduction to Copywriting with Maggie Richards is available monthly; while our Writing the Memoir course is now taught by the brilliant Anna Wilson. Our Writing for the Web and Digital Media continues to be run by the expert broadcast journalist Holly Powell-Jones; and the dynamic duo of Anna Tsekouras and Pete Austin, aka Anon Agency, run our Intro to Branding course.

Opportunities

Our year-long Novel Studio course for aspiring novelists is now open for applications for 2024/25 intake, with a deadline of 30th June 2024. All successful applicants are automatically entered into the Novel Studio literary agent competition, with the top three applications sent to Lucy Luck, literary agent at C&W Agency with a view to representation.

There is also a fully funded scholarship for the course, The Captain Tasos Politis Scholarship, available to a talented applicant from a low-income household.

Our Writing for Social Impact course continues to offer a scholarship for one young student (18-25) from an underrepresented background and/or facing financial difficulty. Please contact the tutor, Ciaran Thapar, for more information on this opportunity.

All current students of Introduction to Copywriting, Writing for Business and Narrative Non-Fiction courses are eligible to submit an idea for a blog post for short courses. If the idea is accepted, and the written piece meets our standards, it will be professionally edited and published on our blog.

City Writes

This spring sees the return of City Writes, our termly showcase for all the great writing talent coming out of the creative writing short courses at City. This term our guest authors will be Laurence Kershook and Katharine Light (see above) both alumni of the Novel Studio.

To join us at the event on March 27th at 7pm on Zoom, please register for free HERE.

And if you would like to enter the competition to win the chance to share the stage with Laurence and Katharine, please visit here for all the submission details. Deadline for entries is this Friday 1st March! That’s tomorrow!!

Writing Retreat

This May the Ruppin Agency Writers’ Studio is returning to Paris for another edition of our spring writing retreat. A literary agent and a published author and university lecturer are teaming up to guide writers through five days of focussed writing, offering individual feedback, advice and group exercises. They’re offering £200 off the full price to anyone who quotes PARIS2024 (or mentions where they heard about this).

Open Evening

And finally, we are running an open evening with taster sessions on March 26th at 6pm. There’ll also be a dedicated Novel Studio enquiry desk manned by tutor Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone for anyone who wants to find out more about our flagship year-long course. Register HERE.

That’s all for now. Keep on writing and keep your stories coming into us. And huge congratulations to all our alumni and tutors.

Autumn 2023 News from our Writing Community

October 11, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Happy Autumn! Here’s the latest news from our fantastic writing short course alumni and tutors…

 

Alumni News

Author and City short course alumna Deepa Anappara

Oneworld have acquired The Last of Earth, the second novel by Novel Studio alumna Deepa Anappara. The novel will be published in hardback as a lead title in March 2025. An historical novel set in mid-19th century Tibet, Juliet Mabey at Oneworld said ‘I’m delighted to be working with such a bold and unique storyteller.’

 

Katy Darby’s Writers’ Workshop and Short Story Writing students have had more astonishing success. Rupert Dastur has sold his debut novel Cloudless to Penguin. Richie Jones was shortlisted for the London Magazine Short Story Prize. Sean Hannaway, as S. P. Hannaway, recently had a short story published in Stand (‘This or That or Any Other Thing’) and one is forthcoming in The Pomegranate (‘Exit Pye, with Cushion’). Sean was also shortlisted for the Bristol Prize in 2021 for his short story ‘Love, Hunger’.

Peter Forbes’ Narrative Non Fiction alumni have been as busy as ever!

Narrative Non Fiction Alumna Claire Martin’s debut, Heirs of Ambition

NNF alumna Claire Martin published her debut book Heirs of Ambition: The Making of the Boleyns in September with History Press. Ed O’Brien’s article ‘Hardcore Landscaping: how to grow a garden on sand, gravel and concrete’ was published in The Guardian on 28 July 2023; and Alice Kent’s memoir  ‘And Those are Stars’ was published in Hinterland, Issue 13, 2023.

Amal Abdi, graduate of Holly Rigby’s Narrative Non Fiction course, has been commissioned to write a new play for London’s Rich Mix theatre venue. The play will run for two dates on Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th October and can be booked here.

Susan Grossman’s Travel Writing Student, Yvette Cook, has had successful travel journalism commissions from The Independent, The Slovenia Tourist Board and BBC Sky at Night.

Competitions

City Writes, City’s termly writing competition for all past and present City short course writing students, is open for submissions. This term’s event is on Wednesday 13th December at 7pm on Zoom and the published guest author will be writer and City tutor, Caroline Green. Not only does Caroline write fiction for young people and adults, she is also the much valued and acclaimed teacher of the Crime and Thriller Writing short course here at City. From YA, through psychological thriller, to supernatural detective fiction, Caroline Green is an inspirational powerhouse. Register here now to save your spot for the night.

If you would like to read your work in front of a supportive audience and share the virtual stage with Caroline on the 13th December, all you need to do is submit your best 1,000 words of fiction or creative non-fiction (we accept YA but sadly NOT poetry, drama or children’s fiction) to rebekah.lattin-rawstrone.2@city.ac.uk by midnight on Friday 10th November. Please check the full submission details here.

 The Book Edit Writers’ Prize 2023 is open for submissions. Judged this year by Deepa Anappara, and in association with Legend Press, the prize is free to enter and open to all British or UK-based unpublished, unagented novelists from communities currently underrepresented in UK publishing. For more details visit the prize page here. Deadline 23 October.

 Scholarships

We offer a fully-funded place for a young adult (18-25) from an underrepresented background and/or facing financial difficulty on our Writing for Social Impact course. To apply, please contact the tutor Ciaran Thapar explaining why you’d like to attend. This course is now offered monthly to reflect the increased demand.

 Tutor News

Author and Short Course Tutor Katy Darby

Short Story and Writers’ Workshop tutor Katy Darby has three new historical short stories coming out in anthologies in November, with Belanger Books.

Writing for Children tutor Bryony Pearce’s new Mid-grade novel, Hannah Messenger and the Gods of Hockwold, was published in June, and her short story is in a new sci fi anthology Parsec in Print.

Writing the Memoir tutor Anna Wilson’s picture book Grandpa and the Kingfisher was shortlisted for the Wainwright Nature Prize, illustrated by Sarah Massini.

And finally, we have a new Writing for Business tutor on Monday evenings, Tamsin Mackay. Welcome, Tamsin! And huge thanks to Jenny Stallard, who Tamsin is replacing, for her brilliant teaching the past few years.

Happy Writing Everyone. and congrats to all our brilliant alumni and tutors.

Novel Studio Showcase 2023

July 3, 2023 / / 0 Comments

By Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

 

There’s nothing quite like listening to new writing talent and this year’s 2022/23 cohort of Novel Studio students held their own in a fantastic showcase event of their writing, reading their extracts with professional aplomb.

 

The evening began with an overview of the unbelievable list of published alumni including Novel Studio tutor, Kiare Ladner, Deepa Anappara, Hannah Begbie, Harriet Tyce, Elizabeth Chakrabarty, Attiyah Khan, Anna Mazzola and Greg Keen. Next year will also see alumna Lara Haworth’s debut, Monumenta, which will be published in June 2024 and just this week a new announcement about another alumna, Jo Cunningham, whose murder mystery, Death By Numbers, will be out with Constable in August 2024. The Novel Studio is incredibly proud of its alumni and their ongoing successes. You can find out even more about the alumni here.

 

2019 saw the introduction of the Novel Studio scholarship, generously funded by alumna Harriet Tyce. The scholarship provided a fully funded place for one successful applicant to the course from a low-income household. We’re immensely grateful to Harriet for this brilliant scheme which ran for the fourth time this year, and excited that The Book Edit will be continuing the scholarship for a fifth year for the 2023/24 Novel Studio cohort.

 

Alison Halsley

This year was a difficult one emotionally for students and staff. We were all devastated earlier this year when one of our treasured students, Alison Halsley, tragically died. Alison had a darkly comic sense of humour and her lively prose and personality has been missed in class and was missed at the showcase. This year’s showcase anthology is dedicated to her memory. She never failed to make us laugh with her work and we’re very sorry for her loss.

 

In spite of these difficult circumstances, the students managed to remain incredibly focussed and dedicated to their writing as the readings were soon to show.

 

Inspiring them on, we were lucky enough to hear from alumna, Lara Haworth, who joined the event to wish the students well with their ongoing careers, encouraging them to appreciate the nurture and support offered by the Novel Studio during and after the completion of the course. We couldn’t be happier for Lara and we will hold her to the invitation she made to all of the attendees to celebrate at the launch party of her debut in 2024.

Lara Haworth

Filled with Lara’s enthusiasm, the students’ readings kicked off to a fiery start with our first reader, Emily Shamma whose novel The Complicit, moves between London in 2010 and Oxford in the nineties, unravelling a darkly comic tale of love, damage and betrayal. Emily left us reeling from her character’s discovery of his car, burnt and marked by ominous graffiti on the wall behind it. An unnerving but dramatic opening for the talent to come.

 

We left the dodgy North London back street for a tale of two friends in 2000s West England next as author Marc-Anthony Hurr read from his novel, The Millennials. The chat lit up with enthusiasm for Marc-Anthony’s description of childhood friendship and the dizzy descriptions of the onset of epilepsy.

We left love and friendship behind for the acerbic and dangerously anonymous world of social media where a desire for revenge allows an alter ego to take increasing control in the tangible world as Lana Younis read from her novel, Play The Long Game.

 

Lana’s discovery ringing in our ears, we headed to London’s future next, taking a psychic journey into Heidi Ng’s novel, Divination. The idea of a futuristic novel with its roots in the Oracle of Delphi excited us all and we were dazed by our trip into the psychic realm.

Abim Tayo read for us next, sharing an extract from his novel, Dancing in the Snow, set in Lagos. The audience was terrified by the childhood memory of a man shaking a car and smearing it with faeces. It certainly made us all excited to hear what would happen next.

 

Transporting us to the Bucharest Ring Road, we heard from Nico Bechis next as she read from her novel Horse With No Rider, introducing us to casual prostitution and the delights of swearing in Romanian. A haunting and eloquent portrait, we were all hooked.

 

We went from the transactional to the tender mesh of relationships forged in teenage years next as we heard Matthew Triggs read from his novel, ST16. A sentimental kiss in the swirl of light snowfall caught by the soft glow of the street lamps, held us all in unfulfilled longing.

Following the relationship theme, we found ourselves contemplating the possible political complexities of love in Monica Bathiya’s extract from her novel, Middle Ground, next. The subtle shifts of inner thought had us all wondering what would happen to Monica’s characters, whether there was real love between them and even then if it was enough to survive the complexities of post-pandemic Mumbai.

 

Taking us into the glamorous world of the celebrity and business elite next, Gayle Killilea threw us right into the middle of her fast-paced romantic thriller, The Heart Wants What The Heart Wants, as she shared her character Walter’s typical morning routine. The audience chat revealed a rather desperate desire for a night out with Walter, as long as he was paying.

 

We went from fast cars to a more sedate 60th in a pub garden next with Ben O’Donnell as he read from his novel, Sweet Caroline. A wonderfully pitched extract that gave us all Caroline was thinking whilst revealing so much more to the audience, we were left eager to find out what would happen to this seemingly happy family, sensing all was not as it seemed.

 

From family celebration to late night clubbing, we hit the dance floor with Marta Ramos next as she read from her novel, Spaghetti Meatballs. Filled with the energy and rush of youth, we couldn’t get enough of Marta’s extract and were sorry to see her character fall into bed, wishing instead we were speeding through the night on the back of a scooter.

 

Novel Studio Scholarship Winner Sonia Hope read next, taking us from the dance floor to the more sedately curated space of the Library, as she read from her novel, The Archivist. What would happen to these two characters whose first meeting was tinged with the awkwardness of intrigue and desire?

 

Taking us from one archive to another, we went headlong into the digital archive next with our final reader, Charles Williams. He read an extract from his novel, The London Project, giving us a filmic view into the first meeting of two lovers-to-be. Voyeuristic? Perhaps. But he reassured us that it was really ok to watch and listen, afterall, we needed to understand that these characters were all dead.

 

It was an enigmatic and poignant ending to a scintillating night of readings from some extremely talented writers. Thanking the students, the tutors Kiare Ladner and Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone, and the Novel Studio Director, Emily Pedder, we also thanked the staff at City, particularly Josie Gleave and Robert Lastman. The audience was also thanked for their great contribution to the night.

 

What a fantastic showcase for the bestselling and prize-winning writers of the future. Go Novel Studio Cohort 2022/23!

And for anyone who wasn’t able to be there you can now watch a recording from the event HERE.

Blue flower on green stem with blurred background

Spring is coming!

Writing Short Courses Newsletter Spring 2023

March 2, 2023 / / 0 Comments

The bluebells are here and the days are getting just that bit longer. Here to bring even more joy is the latest news from our wonderful writing short course alumni and tutors.

Alumni News

Novel Studio alumni news: Award-winning author Deepa Anappara will publish Letters to a Writer of Colour later this year. Edited with Taymour Soomro, it’s a collection of essays on fiction, race, and culture. Deepa has also recently joined the MA Creative Writing teaching team at City where she teaches Literary Journalism. There will be a launch for the book at City on March 13th. It’s free but you’ll need to register HERE.

Book cover of Letters to a Writer of Colour

Letters to a Writer of Colour, edited by Deepa Anappara

 

Book cover for The House of Whispers

The House of Whispers, Anna Mazzola’s new novel

Anna Mazzola’s new historical thriller, The House of Whispers, will launch in March 2023. Ian Rankin has described Anna’s work as ‘Historical fiction with a fantastical twist, done with verve and skill’.

Janet Philips has published her debut book, Great Literary Friendships, with Bodleian Library, described by Publisher’s Weekly as a ‘fun spin on literary analysis’.

Rachel Mann has published her short story, The Things We Grew, with Passengers Journal. She has also published a column in the Rumpus called Things I Wish I Could Workshop other than my Novel.

Katy Darby’s Writers’ Workshop and Short Story Writing students continue to shine. Emma Guinness (Grae) has won Scots book of the Year 2022 for her novel Be Guid Tae Yer Mammy. Her second novel, The tongue she speaks — 15k of which was workshopped on her City course — was published last year with Luath Press. Sue Hann has a publishing deal with Neem Tree Press for a non-fiction book due out in 2025.  Kate Gilby Smith has published two middle-grade children’s books with Hachette since taking the course in 2017, the first was The Astonishing Future of Alex Nobody and the second is Olive Jones and the Memory Thief, which came out in June 2022.

Book cover for OliverJones and the Memory Thief

Olive Jones and the Memory Thief by Kate Gilby Smith

Joe Gallard has won the Ilkley International 8x8x8 playwriting competition. His play, This is Not a Drill, will be performed at the Ilkley Playhouse this April. Tickets available here. Helen Harjak was shortlisted for the 2022 Willesden Herald Short Story Prize. Former Times literary editor Erica Wagner will publish a new book, The Vocal + Fiction Awards Anthology, with Unbound in February 2023. The anthology is a collection of stories chosen from over 13,000 entries submitted to the Vocal+ Fiction Awards. Roly Grant’s 500 word story ‘Dust’ was the Richmond borough winner in Spread the Word’s ‘City of Stories’ anthology, published in June 2022.

Martin Ouvry’s Novel Writing and Longer Works’ alumnus Conor Sneyd has published his debut novel, Future Fish, with Lightning Books. You can read more about Conor’s path to publication on our blog here. Two of Martin’s other students, Angelita Bradney and Kate Vine, have been taken on by top literaryn agents — Catherine Cho at Paper Literary, and Johnson & Alcock, respectively.

2023 looks like being a great year for Peter Forbes’ Narrative Non Fiction alumni. Dee Peyok brought her pitch for a book about Cambodian rock music in the 1960s to the

Author photo of Aniefiok Ekpoudom

Aniefiok Ekpoudom

course back in 2013. The book, Away from Beloved Lover, was published by Granta in January, to rave reviews. More recent alumni include Claire Martin’s (2021) Heirs of Ambition, a history of the Boleyn family before they became famous, which will be published by The History Press; and Aniefiok Ekpoudom’s (2015) Where We Come From: How Grime and Rap gave voice to a generation is due from Faber in August. In other news, Alice Kent has been longlisted for the Observer/Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism 2023.

Opportunities

The Novel Studio, our flagship year-long course for aspiring novelists, has opened for applications. For more details on the course and how to apply follow the link to our home page. To find out more about our extensive list of published alumni, take a look here.

If you want to talk to me in person about the Novel Studio or any other writing short course, I’ll be at the virtual Open Evening on 28 March. Sign up HERE.

City Writes

Our termly writing competition open to all writing short course students, past and present, is seeking submissions for its spring event. This term’s guest alumna will be award-winning author Hannah Begbie, author of two Mother and Blurred Lines, both published by HarperCollins. For your chance to join Hannah on the virtual stage, you need only send in your best 1,000 words of creative fiction or nonfiction (no young children’s fiction or poetry please) by midnight on March 3rd to rebekah.lattin-rawstrone.2@city.ac.uk . You can find full submission details here.

Hannah Begbie

Or just come along to hear some fantastic new writing on the night itself, 29th March. It’s all on Zoom and you can register here.

Scholarships

We continue to offer a fully funded place for a young adult (18-25) from an underrepresented background and/or facing financial difficulty on our Writing for Social Impact course. To apply, please contact the tutor Ciaran Thapar explaining why you’d like to attend. This course is now offered monthly to reflect the increased demand.

Please see below for more information on our Novel Studio scholarship.

New Courses

Pete Austin and Anna Tsekouras, aka Anon agency, have hit the ground running on our new Branding 101 course for small businesses, creatives, entrepreneurs or anyone who wants to know more about how to create and foster their own brand. Feedback so far has been very positive with one student describing it as ‘the perfect blend of foundational theory and tangible takeaways.’

Tutor News

Holly Rigby joins the teaching team as Thursday night’s Narrative Non Fiction tutor. A former student on Peter Forbes’ course, she is a passionate advocate for the course and a brilliant writer and teacher in her own right. Holly worked as an English teacher in inner London schools for almost a decade, and is currently working on a book about the UK education system, published by Repeater Books in early 2024. Welcome, Holly!

Writing for Social Impact tutor, author and youth worker Ciaran Thapar has launched his own newsletter, ALL CITY, through Substack. Pitched as the ‘diary of a youth worker, with the pen of an author’, the newsletter will be a weekly dive into the challenges of inner city youth work and education. You can sign up and find out more here.

Anna Wilson is now teaching our Writing the Memoir course. Most of Anna’s books have been for children and teens, but more recently she has turned her hand to writing for adults. Her memoir A Place for Everything – my mother, autism and me has been reviewed as “a seminal work in this area” by the world expert in autism in women, Professor Tony Attwood. Welcome back, Anna!

Paris writing retreat, 12-16 April 2023. Former Novel Studio tutor and award-winning author Dr Emma Claire Sweeney and literary agent Jonathan Ruppin will host five days of mentoring and group writing sessions in a stunning private residence a short walk from the Eiffel Tower. Planning and follow-up sessions on Zoom. Quote CITY10 for 10% discount for bookings made by 13th March 2023.

Paris Writing Retreat

And finally…

We wanted to say a huge thank you to Harriet Tyce. Harriet has funded and supported our Novel Studio scholarship for the past four years. A former barrister and Novel Studio alumna, Harriet is now a Sunday Times best-selling crime novelist. Her three novels, all published by Wildfire, have been runaway successes and her reputation as a leading crime writer is now firmly established. We have been so lucky to have Harriet’s backing for the Novel Studio, not only through the scholarship program — a program she initiated — but also through her ongoing mentoring support for the scholarship recipients and her generous introductions to the annual showcase. We very much hope to keep the scholarship alive — so do watch this space for more on this — but in the meantime, thank you so much, Harriet!

That’s all for this term. Congratulations and thanks to all our wonderful students and tutors.

To find out more about all our creative writing short courses visit our home page HERE.

And for more on all City’s short courses, look HERE.

City Writes Autumn 2020 Transports the Zoom-bound!

December 17, 2020 / / 0 Comments
By Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone
The sun is shining less hours in the day, we’re all straining under the impact of the pandemic, but City Writes Autumn 2020 was a perfect tonic for the blues. Held on Zoom, five fantastic competition winners joined prize-winning author and alumna, Deepa Anappara who read from her debut, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line and discussed her work with City Writes host and Novel Studio Visiting Lecturer, Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone.
We began in France with the opening of Nola d’Enis’s novel, Uhtcaere, a work-in-progress currently being written whilst Nola studies on the Novel Studio. Treated to the lingerie draw of a femme fatale, Nola enthralled us with her eloquent delivery and her sensory and sensual detail.
Emma Dooley, a recent alumna of Cherry Pott’s Approach to Creative Writing class, read next, giving us a terse, poignant account of two ex-lovers meeting outside Lidl during the lockdown with her story ‘Fine.’. The economy of her writing really plumbed the emotional depths and awkwardness of a chance encounter.
Novel Studio alumna, Marta Michalowska read her story ‘Grey Curtain’ next, immersing us in the muted tones of loss and longing, a sea landscape where water and sky blend and walking provides the only cure for despair. Such delicate and specific descriptions transported us into the world of her character.
Back to the pandemic, Richard Bowyer, an Approach to Creative Writing alumnus, was the next to read his story. ‘Return of Service’ is his first ever short story and what promise it shows. A hilarious account of a golf sale sign holder needing a new job, this gem of a story gets better with reacquaintance, and got the audience giggling.
We returned to France next with Novel Studio student, Lucy Blincoe, who read an extract from her first novel, We Are Young, called ‘Lessons in Aioli’. In France to improve her French, the main character visits an acquaintance to cheer her up after a break-up, and ends up being forced into an uncomfortable situation with her father. Filled with tension and sexual menace, this minutely observed story was painfully familiar for many.
Suzanne Farg, another alumna of Approach to Creative Writing, read her tense and complex story ‘Ruby’ next. Beginning in a courtroom, we follow Ruby’s perspective as she reveals what really happened to that boy her husband was accused of killing. That should be enough to whet your appetite!
With these wonderful readings from competition winners over, it was time to hear from our professional Deepa Anappara. Her novel Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, set in a Basti – an overcrowded area on the outskirts of a big Indian city – explores child disappearances through the children’s perspectives, with a brilliantly buoyant and upbeat main narrator, Jai, whose positive exploration of difficult subjects lifts the dark subject matter and gives us an account of a marginalised community who lives are rich with hope and ambition despite their circumstances. It’s an overwhelming generous and thoughtful novel and if you haven’t read it yet, get a copy now.
After a reading from the novel, discussing the significance and power of the djinn, Deepa answered questions from Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone and audience, contemplating the power and difficulties of the novel to speak from diverse voices and offering wonderful advice to budding writers. She suggested writers’ practice persistence, meticulous research and listen carefully to feedback.
The full interview can be viewed in the recording of the event with all the fabulous readings too. If you missed it, you don’t need to miss out!

Celebrate with City Writes this December! Competition Winners Announced

November 30, 2020 / / 0 Comments

City Writes Winter 2020 Competition Winners Announced

by Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

Temper those party blues by joining us on Zoom this Wednesday 9th December at 7pm for a fabulous evening of readings from competition winners and the brilliant Novel Studio alumna, Deepa Anappara whose debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a New York Times Notable Book, one of Washington Post’s Best Thrillers and Mystery Books, and one of Timemagazine’s 2020 must-reads. It won the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2020 and longlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Booker Prize.

You won’t want to miss out and can register here. 

Deepa Anappara's debut novel

Deepa Anappara’s debut novel

Deepa will be joined by the following fantastic competition winners: 

Lucy Blincoe, a Novel Studio student, was born in Rochdale. She has an MA in Screenwriting, has written for EastEnders, and has had feature films, sitcoms and series in development. She currently works on the Guardian and Observer and teaches French. She lives in London. Her story, ‘Lessons in Aïoli’, is an extract from her novel, We Are Young.
Richard Bowyer studied An Approach to Creative Writing at City this term. His story ‘Return of Service’ – his first short story – was written in response to a task set by the tutor. In 1983, his poem ‘Likes and Dislikes’ was highly commended by the Chelmsford Weekly News, so he is delighted to have built on that success so quickly. Richard works in the fundraising sector and lives in Twickenham with his demanding cat and understanding girlfriend.
Emma Dooley began writing during lockdown earlier this year, beginning with journaling, essays and then, most recently, short stories as part of Cherry Potts’ Approach to Creative Writing class. Her style of writing is of the descriptive
Deepa Anappara

Deepa Anappara

kind, delving intricately into the bliss and anxiety of being human. When she’s not writing she works in recruitment with a tech company, reads about social science and gender studies, cooks, walks in Victoria Park and plays piano. She’ll be reading her story ‘Fine.’

Nola d’Enis lives and works in Bordeaux and manages a jazz band in her free time. Enrolled on City’s Novel Studio, she’s currently writing a novel about a trio of femmes fatales in a small French town, inspired by real events. Originally from Zimbabwe, she enjoys writing about food and wine and is constantly looking for ways of incorporating both in her books. She’ll be reading an extract from her novel, Uhtcaere.
Suzanne Farg has enjoyed developing her skills on Cherry Potts’ Approach to Creative Writing course.  She is particularly interested in fiction as a means of cultivating empathy and exploring characters’ motivation for puzzling behaviour. Suzanne lives in East London with three cats, two of whom don’t really like her. But that’s another story. She’ll be reading ‘Ruby’.
Marta Michalowska, an alumna of the Novel Studio, is a curator and artist based in London. She is currently putting the final touches to her debut novel, Sketching in Ashes, and writing her second one, A Tram to the Beach, both exploring contested territories. Marta is Associate Director of Theatrum Mundi, where she is co-editing two collections of commissioned writing to be published in 2021, as well as Director of London-based arts organisation The Wapping Project.
There’ll be laughter, thrills, loss, longing, an exploration of social justice and the nastier sides of desire before we’re lucky enough to listen to Deepa.
Register now for an inspired and inspiring evening of writing and discussion. Doors will open at 6.45pm, but the event will start at 7pm. We can’t wait to see you there.
November 5, 2020

City Writes Winter 2020 Competition Deadline

By Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

The event that showcases City’s Short Course Creative Writing talent is back on Zoom. After our successful virtual City Writes in the Summer Term, we are delighted to be returning with another City Writes via Zoom this term on:

Wednesday 9th December 6.45-8pm.

Our professional writer this term will be the fabulous Novel Studio and Short Courses alumna Deepa Anappara, whose debut, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, was longlisted for the Booker Prize earlier this year. A wonderful novel about child disappearances from the outskirts of a large Indian city, Deepa will be reading a short extract and answering questions from host, Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone and audience.

Guest author Deepa Anappara
For your chance to read alongside Deepa, you need only send your best 1,000 words of fiction or creative non-fiction by:
Friday 13th November.

Competition and submission guidelines can be found here.

If you’re keen to get ahead do register for the event on the 9th here.

Competition winners will be announced in week 9.

We look forward to receiving your submissions and seeing you in December!

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