Caroline Adams
Caroline Adams is a graduate of the creative writing MA at Lancaster. Her first novel TAKING SOMETHING SMALL is set in a fictitious African country and tells the utterly vivid and compelling story of an idealistic and over-zealous aid worker, Corrie Campbell, and the forces that surround her.
In love with the poet and wanderer, Bashir, she must decide whether to follow him and his dreams of fame and acceptance in the West or to remain behind in the desert settlements to raise the abandoned orphan, placed in her arms the day the bomb went off and everything changed.
As paths cross and re-cross, the baby’s mother returns and the policeman Macharia whom she so boldly faced down at the road block must be confronted once more. When the right thing to do becomes the wrong thing to do, questions are inevitably raised about the nature of identity, belonging and loss.
The author has worked in film production in Kenya. She currently lives in Brighton and teaches creative writing for the Open University.
All rights available
Bill Broady
Bill's first novel was SWIMMER, a striking, supple and direct novel. It tells the story of a girl who, having hidden from the confusions of childhood first in dreams of flying and then by falling in love with water, is subsequently coached to become a successful international athlete. But when a child has wished for the world - and got it - who or what can help her plot a course through the deeper, darker waters that lie beyond the training pool, out there in real life? Lyrical, moving, perfectly achieved, SWIMMER is a staggering debut.
Flamingo, January 2001 – world rights.
A volume of short stories followed:IN THIS BLOCK THERE LIVES A SLAG. From the council blocks of Bradford to dingy moorland pubs with forty-year-old hits on the jukebox, Broady's bright vollection of stories tours Yorkshire and gives it a tart lick of fresh prose paint, deploying all the precision, wit and vigour to be expected of this highly-acclaimed author.
Flamingo 2002 - world rights.
Broady’s second novel, ETERNITY IS TEMPORARY was published by Portobello in 2006. UK & Commonwealth: Portobello. Translation: Marsh Agency. US: Author
Emily Bullock
TO BE LIKE YOU is the debut novel by the immensely talented UEA graduate Emily Bullock.
Set on the Isle of Wight in the sweltering summer of 1962, TO BE LIKE YOU tells the story of Charlie and Carol, twins who join the drift of aimless souls into casual work at a holiday camp. But Charlie and Carol are far from aimless – they are sexual tricksters and blackmailers who have left their Soho turf for new territory.
Charlie has always been dominated by his twin. He is a pawn in her games, but on the night he leaves London he finally sees the one thing he wants in life. Joe. Charlie lays a trap to lure Joe to the Isle of Wight and Joe unwittingly takes the bait. But as Charlie loses control over the events he has set in motion, his secret obsession with the unattainable Joe combines with the twisted dynamic of the twins’ relationship to create a cycle of violence and revenge which demonstrates the destructive power of secrets and illicit love.
This is a powerful work full of profound insight and psychological complexity from a very gifted writer.
Currently on submission.
Paul Daly teaches at the London School of Journalism. He is a thriller writer in the tradition of Le Carre and Greene at the upmarket end of the thriller market, where plots are filled with menace, action, violence and mystery but not at the expense of perceptive and intelligent observation, characterisation and story-telling.
Paul's novel, COMPRESSION, opens with the arrival of an ummarked DVD-R into Robbie McBride's life and focuses on Robbie's increasingly desperate investigations to discover what's on it and who's behind it. Robbie is a small time DVD pirate and gamekeeper turned poacher - an ex-policeman who left the force on moral grounds following an undercover operation which ensnared his friend Glen Parker - a hacker and expert in compression algorithms. With Glen's help, he discovers that the DVD contains explosive webcam footage of a powerful crime lord murdering a prostitute – evidence enough to put him away for life, or act as a weapon in the right hands.
Robbie and Glen realise that they've been handed a once in a lifetime opportunity, but one with incredible risks attached. Their grand plan for making it big takes them back into the depths of the criminal Soho underworld and into direct conflict with Dean Lowell; a psychotic DVD pirate and pornographer, who is losing a turf war to immigrant Malaysians and what's left of his grasp on reality.
But the DVD is not quite what it seems. Finding out its truth forces Robbie and Glen to face betrayal, rage, and ultimately, kinship. And to understand what's deep down inside themselves, when put under
the pressure of life and death.
Tightly plotted, deftly characterised, explosively written, astonishingly authentic, COMPRESSION is a mature and confident novel from a writer with a great future.
Jim Driver
The founder of The Do Not Press, Jim is also a journalist and author. His most recent publication was THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK'N' ROLLand he is currently writing a crime novel set in London at the end of the 19th Century.
Sophie Duffy
Sophie Duffy's debut novel is The Generation Game. This is the marvellously inventive, warm, amusing and moving account of the first forty years in the life of Philippa Smith, hapless but determined, intelligent but rash, abandoned but loved. Told in flashback from the maternity ward where Philippa, at forty, has just become a mother, The Generation Game takes us back through a 60s and 70s childhood as we watch Philippa grow up in a world uncannily familiar to many of us. So many of Philippa’s experiences and defining moments are echoed in our own memories, and yet her life and family is bizarrely different. As her own real family crumbles away in betrayal she gradually acquires a new, accidental, ramshackle, loving one, populated with misfits and dreamers. As the story of her life unfolds we come to know and love our indomitable, reckless heroine, and as the secrets of her and her family’s past slowly surface we find ourselves rooting for her more than ever in her search for happiness.
Sophie Duffy’s debut is a thoroughly warm-hearted novel but it has a hard edge that reminds us how frightening and desperate life can get. As a work in progress it won Sophie the 2006 Yeovil Literary Prize. She is a writer with a very bright future.
David Evans
A TOUCH OF THE SUN is a different kind of novel about South Africa. It is set around the time of the Sharpeville massacres, amongst the, poor, white working class community. Simon Brown is its hero: a small-town boy, he is selfish and opportunistic – cowardly, even – and a believer in white supremacy. He dreams of money, power, fun, sexual promiscuity and a beautiful bride, and sees Black South African aspirations as an insolent irrelevance. However, when post-Sharpeville South Africa drifts into increasing violence, Simon’s ambitions crumble as his turbulent temperament, a growing passion for his wayward, activist sister and his fascination for an Asian girl clash chaotically with his growing political awareness. Simon is at breaking point, caught as he is between the Black/White divide, with devastating consequences.
This is a powerful and intellectually rigorous literary debut of political and sexual intrigue, told with scarifying lucidity.
David Evans has won awards for his short stories (Ian St James, thrice) and had plays performed in South Africa, where he served 5 years in prison for anti-apartheid activities. Before leaving he worked as a journalist and advertising copywriter. He gained a BA in prison, and then an MPhil at Oxford and was a lecturer at Liverpool University before leaving to write full time. David is currently writing his second novel.
Mo Fanning
Birmingham born Mo Fanning trained as a teacher, sold advertising, learned how to fix computers and flip burgers before eventually settling in Amsterdam to spend many years honing an extraordinary ability to write enjoyable stories that instantly appeal to wide audiences.
Mo is already something of a legend in the Internet world, writing 'guides for the technically challenged' that have allowed many a Luddite to bluffhis or her way through complex issues.
Mo has enjoyed a near stranglehold on the best seller charts at the UK Arts Council run website 'You Write On'.
Mo's debut novel, THE ARMCHAIR BRIDE is a sassy classy Bridget Jones for the Facebook generation, dealing with the dangers of letting the past rule the future. People who know about these sorts of things have called it 'laugh out loud funny' and 'refreshingly original'. The magic of Mo's writing lies in a raft of well-rounded, easy to identify with characters and dialogue that crackles off the page.
Lisa Doyle, the Armchair Bride, is careering towards forty as a single woman. Best friend Andy Roberts is also pushing an age that in gay years makes him a social outcast. His hopes of a feted acting career are fading fast.
Lisa's confidence - and Andy's patience - is tested when she learns that her best friend from school is to marry. If that isn't enough, she ends up agreeing to be matron of honour. Fearing she will be judged a failure by people from her past, she updates her online profile at a social networking website, conjuring up a husband in the click of a mouse.
Through a series of twists and turns that include getting legless in a backstreet Irish drinking den, several disastrous dinner dates with her soon-to-be-single boss and a tangle with potty-mouthed drag queen Fonda Cox, Lisa struggles to stop worrying about what others think and face the future.
Tara Gould
Tara Gould works in the film and TV industry. After attending a residential course at the Arvon Foundation in Totleigh Barton she was chosen to appear in their 2003 anthology of new writing. She is writing her first novel, PASCOE’S BOX, set in a small provincial town, which tells the inter-connected stories of a number of disparate characters struggling to escape from lives of confinement and possession, and having to face the drastic consequences of those attempts at escape. A very gifted young writer.
Alyson Hallett
Set in the towns of Maradona, New Mexico and Tadoussac, Canada, Alyson's first novel, THE MAP MAKER, tells the story of a teenage girl, Almeera, whose world falls apart after the suicide of her brother and the disappearance of her father. These traumatic events trigger in her already unhinged mother an extreme response: she locks all the doors and imprisons herself, Almeera, and Almeera’s tough but simple-minded sister Mestra inside the house, not to be released until her husband returns. But we know, and Almeera knows, that this will never happen. How is Almeera to escape her prison? Will her devoted friend Albertini, the butcher of Maradona, rescue her? And is the new baby in the family really the reincarnation of her brother?
In a narrative alternating between Almeera’s present in Canada and her past in New Mexico, Alyson Hallett blends lyricism, humour, poetry and surrealism to tell the arrestingly original story of a life torn down and put back together.
Alyson is currently writer-in-residence at the Small School in Hartland, Devon. She had a collection of short stories published in 2003, on which Helen Dunmore commented thus: ‘These are powerful stories, written with spare eloquence, packed with tension, menace and longing. Alyson Hallett is a new talent to watch’. She has also written highly acclaimed drama for Radio 4, and will have her first volume of poetry published in 2007. THE MAP MAKER is her first novel.
Justin Hill
Runner up to the Betty Trask Prize 2001 the author’s first novel was THE DRINK AND DREAM TEA HOUSE, set in modern, urban China. His first published work was the travel book A BEND IN THE YELLOW RIVER (Phoenix House), telling the story of his two years spent as a teacher in China. CIAO ASMARA, his third book, is an exemplary piece of travel writing which covers the two years he spent in Eritrea.
Justin’s second novel, PASSING UNDER HEAVEN was published by Abacus in 2004. He is currently writing his third novel.
In May 2003 Justin was awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and in 2005 he won the Somerset Maugham Award.
Mary Hogan
Mary is a US author whose primary agent is Laura Langlie. She writes teenage fiction and her first novel THE SERIOUS KISS was published in January 2005 by Simon & Schuster in the UK, by HarperCollins in the US, and in Germany by Rowohlt.
The book is narrated by the fourteen-year-old Libby Madrigal who decides, with her best friend Nadine, that she simply must, by her 15th birthday, experience one 'totally real, meaningful, soulful, poetic, inspiring, knee-buckling, love-filled, journal worthy, insomnia producing, appetite reducing, mind blowing, life changing, unforgettable, undeniable - serious kiss'. But Libby's family is crumbling around her and they are soon forced to move from Chatsworth, California to Barstow, Nevada, leaving behind Nadine and the boy Libby had in mind for that first serious kiss. Worse still, Libby's family moves into a trailer park retirement community where her estranged grandmother lives. What are Libby's chances now of finding anyone of even an appropriate age for that first serious kiss?
Mary is also working on the first in a four book series - SUSANNA DOES SUMMER. 15 year old Susanna Barringer thought she was the luckiest girl in the world. What are the odds that a native New Yorker, public school sophomore, apparently-incurable virgin - more of a Roseanne than a Reese - would land a coveted summr internship at SCENE magazine? Must be a gazillion to one. At least.
But there she is, basking in the glam world of a celebrity magazine...until reality sets in. 'Intern' appears to be a synonym for 'Messenger'; Nell Wickham, the Editor-in-Chief (a British import, of course!) is a neurotic nutcase; and the snobby SCENE editors treat her like she's a high-schooler who knows nothing - which of course she is, but do they have to treat her that way?
SUSANNA DOES SUMMER follows Susanna's adventures as she attempts to carve out a mini-career as a celebrity reporter. When she meets mega-star Randall Sanders she's surely on her way - but after disgracing herself on set she has to find another way of getting the story before summer, and her internship, are over. More Susanna books are under contract, as well as two other stand-alone novels, PERFECT GIRL and PRETTY FACE.
Mary Hogan is a journalist and former editor of TEEN magazine. She also writes for television and radio.
Tina Jackson
Formerly the Arts Editor of The Big Issue and now a freelance journalist and author, Tina's first novel is MARIBEL'S WARDROBE. a joyously comic and perceptive book that tells the story of a young, single woman’s emotional education by the ghosts of the past and the harsh-edged disappointments of the present. Maribel lives a lonely, directionless life, neither knowing what she wants, nor believing that it is even out there. By night she rides the relentless carousel of clubs, pubs, parties and one-night stands, and by day she works, reluctant and sullen, in Faithful Friends a local charity clothing shop for the benefit of homeless dogs, and run by the elderly but sturdy Chrysanthemum. In the midst of her disaffection strange things begin to happen – the clothes in the shop start to offer up their ghosts, and through a series of magical encounters, Maribel starts to question the assumptions she has made about herself and the world. But there is still a very long way for her to travel if she is really going to have a chance of happiness.
MARIBEL’S WARDROBE is a sassy, grungey fairytale, a Cinderella with boots and attitude. It is a tale with elements of the fantastical but utterly grounded in the unforgiving real world. And above all it is a story about love – of friends, and of oneself.
Ariel Kahn
Ariel won the Bloomsbury.com New Voices story competition with his very impressive short story, DOCUMENTS OF A FAMILY. He is currently writing his first novel, FEATHERS AND STONES, and there is already considerable interest in it, and in him, from top editors in London.
FEATHERS AND STONES is the story of a young girl and her unusual family. Its complex and compelling narrative traces the journey of four remarkable individuals from childhood to adulthood and explores the way in which the present and the past continually act upon each other, the way in which every moment is shaped and haunted by what has been and what will be. Its dissection of the interactions of a disintegrating family is utterly gripping and profoundly thought-provoking.
Max Kinnings
Having visited the worlds of contract killing and serial killers in his first two novels HITMANand THE FIXER(both Flame) Max is currently working on a new novel.
Maria McCann
Maria McCann’s literary debut novel AS MEAT LOVES SALTis a study of obsession and sexual jealousy set against the painstakingly researched backdrop of the English Civil War. The hero is Jacob Cullen and we witness the effects of his destructive behaviour on others as, soldier, brother, member of a Digger colony, husband - and lover of another man. A brutal, earthy and captivating read. Flamingo W/Eng Lang Feb 2001. USA: Harcourt Brace, Germany: Econ & List 2001. Translation rights - Marsh Agency.
Maria is currently writing her second novel SEAL SONG.
Ian Marchant
Ian is a young British writer whose first novel IN SOUTHERN WATERS was published by Gollancz (world rights) July ’99.
His second novel was THE BATTLE FOR DOLE ACRE, UK and Comm rights inc. Canada, Weidenfeld & Nicolson June 2001. Translation rights, Marsh Agency. US: Author.
Ian also writes non-fiction.
PARALLEL LINES: JOURNEYS ON THE RAILWAY OF DREAMS- Non fiction. This is a new departure and a natural progression for Ian. His fiction teems with character, incident and comic detail, but now he is turning his characteristic eye for observation, humour and surprise to one of the great shared experiences of the British nation. Parallel Lines will tell the story of what Ian calls the two railways of Britain - the real railway and the railway of our dreams, the one we hate and the one we love, from the grandeur of the Victorian heyday, through the romance of Brief Encounter to the modern reality of commuter hell and signals passed at danger.
Bloomsbury 2003, UK & Commonwealth rights. Translation rights – Marsh Agency. US: Author.
Ian is also the author of MEN AND MODELS(New Holland)
THE LONGEST CRAWL is Ian’s latest project, the non-fiction account of his journey along the longest pub crawl route in Britain - from the Scilly Isles to the Hebrides. Turning his attention from trains to pubs, Ian will anatomise and expose another British obsession, with the fantastic flair, imagination, wit and analytical prowess that are his hallmarks. Ian is in negotiations with a major TV production company to make a series following his progress.
Bloomsbury 2006, UK & Commonwealth rights. Translation rights - Marsh Agency, US: Author
His next book will be THE ELECTRIC PILGRIM.
Sam Meekings
Sam Meekings’ remarkable debut novel is Under Fishbone Clouds. This tells the story of the lifelong love between the peasant boy Hou Jinyi and the rich city girl Bian Yuying. It begins in the 1930s during the Japanese occupation, and follows their struggle for survival through the subsequent civil war, the 1949 revolution, the Great Leap Forwards and the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, which bring separation, ruin and death.
The story is narrated by the Kitchen God, who follows the lives of the two lovers in order to win a bet with the Jade Emperor that he cannot discover the secret of the human heart. This is a love story on a massive scale – a Chinese Dr Zhivago – which nevertheless concerns itself with the infinitely small doings of men and women, and it speaks volumes about human love and resilience, about cowardice, power and evil, and presents a picture of 20th Century China that is as heart-breaking as it is horrific. It is a novel about the very heights and depths of human emotion and experience, but it is achieved without an ounce of sentimentalism, and with unyielding narrative discipline. Sam’s prose is extraordinarily beautiful, constantly fresh, constantly surprising, and unfailingly evocative of a life, a world and a history all so strange and yet rendered so familiar by the palpable humanity of the story.
Sam is 26 years old and has lived with his wife and child in China for the past four years. After graduating from Oxford he took a Masters Degree in Creative Writing at EdinburghUniversity. He works as an editor for Oxford University Press, China. His first volume of poetry, The Bestiary, is due for publication in May 2008 by Polygon.
Gwyn Morgan
Gwyn is a qualified barrister who now works as a legal writer and journalist. Her first novel is MEG OF RAM, for nine to eleven year olds.
This is an infectiously imaginative story told with great energy, warmth and wit, placing a traditional race-against-time quest in the fantastically modern setting of the worldwide web. Megan and her brother David find themselves enlisted by Marcel the magic rabbit and his companion Horace, the computer mouse, to save the world from catastrophe. The evil Computician is destroying language by feeding words into the Worldwide Web and deleting them. When he deletes a word, every trace of it disappears from human experience: Peace, Sleep and Play are just some of the concepts which no longer exist in the world. Can Marcel, Horace, Megan, David and their tough guy friend the Hard Disk put an end to this diabolical enterprise?
Gwyn Morgan has created a glorious fantasy full of great characters, wonderful humour and a hugely inventive array of ideas, playing on the endlessly fertile opportunities presented by the concepts of computing and surfing the net.
All rights available.
Helen Newall
THE MEMORY OF WATER is a rich and complex literary psychological mystery, set on the wild and remote Scottish island of Skerrey. The intricate and compelling narrative which unfolds tells the story of a dangerous and bizarre triangular relationship. This is an electrifying tale of mystery, romance and murder, dealing with the elusive and disruptive nature of memory, the destructive power of obsession, and the madness that lies at the heart of passionate love. Lyrical, intense, dramatic and utterly original, it is a very powerful and important work. The script includes the author’s evocative photographic illustrations.
Helen Newall is a playwright who has been commissioned to write some twenty plays which have been performed in both repertory and regional community theatres. She has earned an MA in Creative Writing and THE MEMORY OF WATER has been submitted for her PhD at Liverpool John Moores University.
All rights available
Jenny Newman
Jenny Newman's first two novels, GOING IN and LIFE CLASS (Hamish Hamilton and Chatto respectively) were published to widespread success and acclaim. HERITAGE is her finest novel yet, an utterly gripping tale set in a remote French Pyrenean village where a well-intentioned, emotionally vulnerable English woman finds herself in conflict with the suspicious, secretive and increasingly malevolent local community.
Eleanor moves to the village of Montberger with her husband and his two children. In her role as an EU representative she is to oversee the establishment of an EU-funded cultural project: a community play about the history of the village. But very soon, amidst the gradual disintegration of her marriage, she begins to feel isolated by the growing hostility of those around her, and when she embarks on an affair with a member of the despised local Moslem community she sets in motion a shocking sequence of events that will lead to a truly horrific climax. Compelling, disturbing and unforgettable, this is a major new commercial novel from a writer and story-teller of prodigious talent.
Jenny Newman is head of the Centre for Writing at Liverpool John Moores University. In addition to her novels she has written and edited several academic works and books on creative writing.
All rights available.
