Agent: Tom Witcomb
Biography: Kevin grew up in Milton Keynes. He travelled for several years before going to university, including 6 months in Sweden, where he studied International Communications. After university he worked in advertising for a while but he eventually moved into teaching English and Media. It was the teaching of English that really started him writing.
SERPENTINE COURT, his first novel, is a YA/Crossover about the teenager demon hunter Kill Bouha.
Joseph O’Connor’s THE THRILL OF IT ALL has been shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. This prize is given to the book considered to best capture the comic spirit of PG Wodehouse.
The winner will receive a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année and a set of the Everyman Wodehouse collection which now totals over 90 books. The winner will also be honoured with the presentation of a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig, to be named after the winning novel.
In the battle for this porcine prize, O’Connor will be competing with Sebastian Faulks’ bestselling Wodehouse pastiche and Helen Fielding’s third Bridget Jones novel. The shortlist also features the latest works of John Niven, Hanif Kureishi and Edward St. Aubyn.
As is customary, this year's winner will be announced just ahead of The Hay Festival on Monday 19 May. This year’s judges are broadcaster and author James Naughtie; David Campbell, Everyman’s Library publisher; and Peter Florence, director of The Telegraph Hay Festival.
Campbell said: “The shortlist for our 15th prize is one of the strongest we’ve ever had. All the books on the list are of great calibre and quality which makes the job of choosing just one of these witty, zestful novels as the winner almost impossible.”
Spanning 25 years, THE THRILL OF IT ALL rewinds and fast-forwards through an evocative soundtrack of struggle and laughter from Thatcher-led London to the Hollywood bowl. A story of loyalties, friendship, the call of the muse, and the beguiling shimmer of teenage dreams, this is a warm-hearted, funny and deeply moving novel for anyone that’s ever loved a song.
THE THRILL OF IT ALL will be launched by Harvill Secker on 15 May. You can pre-order it here. It will be serialised by Book At Bedtime on BBC Radio 4, read over 10 nights in August 2014.
Joseph O’Connor is the author of the internationally acclaimed STAR OF THE SEA, as well as many other novels including GHOST LIGHT and REDEMPTION FALLS, and several short story collections. He was born in Dublin.
Praise for Joseph O’Connor:
'Joseph O’Connor is a fantastic writer…[STAR OF THE SEA] contains the whole echelon of society, as if Ireland actually is that creaking hull.’ -- David Morrissey, Actor, BAFTA winner
‘Ireland’s greatest storyteller’ –The Sunday Independent
‘GHOST LIGHT displays an astonishing command of voice, using tones that are both tender and powerfully emotional, with a brilliant command of the period.’ – Colm Tóibín
‘Joseph O’Connor has the magic touch, he brings whole eras alive with a touch of his cycloramic pen.’ – Column McCann
Emma Gardner has been nominated for the Guild of Food Writers Food Blog of the Year Award, the most prestigious in food writing and broadcasting. She has been shortlisted for the third year running, having won the category in its inaugural year, 2012.
The shortlists highlight emerging talent as well as featuring some of UK’s best-known food writers and broadcasters, including Heston Blumenthal, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Yotam Ottolenghi. The Guild of Food Writers Awards celebrate the breadth of knowledge and expertise at work in a thriving creative field.
The judges described Emma’s blog, Poires au Chocolat as “stunning and very informed… her recipes are very well written and easy to follow… gorgeous”. Shortlisted alongside Poires au Chocolat are blogs by Philip Dundas and the Skint Foodie. The full shortlists can be found here; the winners will be announced on Thursday 5 June at a ceremony at the Royal College of Physicians in London.
Poires au Chocolat has won the Best Use of Video award by popular vote in the 2014 SAVEUR Best Food Blog Awards. It also won Best Food Blog at the Cosmopolitan UK Blog Awards 2012 and was a finalist in the 2012 SAVEUR Best Food Blog Awards in the Baking & Desserts category. It has also been featured in print in Sainsbury’s Magazine, The Guardian, Corriere della Sera, delicious. magazine, Waitrose Kitchen, Cosmopolitan UK and several others. It has been mentioned online in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Red Magazine, Woman & Home, Food 52 and more.
Emma is currently working on her first book, BLIGHTY GRUB, weaving stories and recipes around the food parcels sent to soldiers in World War I.
Subscribers of The Sun were able to download a free eBook of STALKERS by Paul Finch this week, the leading promotion from Sun Perks. This promotion was available to over 40,000 Sun Readers.
A #1 ebook bestseller, in STALKERS Paul Finch plunges the reader into the violent and unforgiving underbelly of modern-day London and Manchester. Detective Sergeant Mark 'Heck' Heckenburg attempts to uncover the mystery behind the disappearance of several dozen women and soon finds himself furiously battling for his life and the truth with a ruthless criminal organisation.
His third novel in the Heck series, THE KILLING CLUB, will be out later this month. Closing the case that opened in STALKERS, DS Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg is seriously wounded. And whilst the ringleader of The Nice Guys – the kidnap and rape gang he’d been pursuing – is behind bars, now it’s time for him to end this once and for all. Heck links a string of brutal murders to the gang, But even greater forces are at work here, as Heck is about to find out…
Praise for Paul Finch:
'Consistently inventive. Consistently excellent…' -- Simon Clark, author of THE FALL and VAMPYRRHIC
'Paul Finch is unique. He creates modern thriller and crime stories with supernatural overtones one minute, and sparkling traditional horror stories the next. One of the most exciting story writers in the business today.' -- Masters of Terror, International Horror Magazine
'Paul Finch is an exciting new voice in the realms of macabre fiction. He sketches out a disturbing landscape, filled with deep shadows and uneasy emotions where stories both traditional and modern are played out to chilling effect. Highly recommended.' -- Mark Chadbourn, author of WORLD'S END and SCISSORMAN
Originally published as a blog post by Emma Lee-Potter, author of three novels, a children’s book and five novellas. She has been a Costa Book Awards judge, has driven across the equator in a Land Rover and interviewed Richard Branson 40 thousand feet above the Atlantic! Emma writes about news, education, books and family and you can visit her website here: http://www.emmaleepotter.com/.
Carole Blake is the doyenne of literary agents. She has worked in publishing for 50 years, started her own literary agency in 1977 and has a star-studded list of clients that includes the likes of Peter James, Barbara Erskine and Sheila O'Flanagan.
She’s also the author of From Pitch to Publication: Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Novel Published, a must-read for writers. Carole is currently writing an updated version, due out in 2015.
At this year’s Chipping Norton Literary Festival Carole teamed up with Wannabe a Writer author Jane Wenham-Jones to present a literary-style Dragons’ Den event. The session was entitled 'Wannabe a Writer – Pitch the Agent' and challenged aspiring writers to submit 1,000 words of their novels for Carole to critique. Five brave individuals were shortlisted and Carole gave her verdict in front of a live audience.
Carole is second to none when it comes to giving advice and guidance to authors and the audience scribbled feverishly as she spoke. Writers agonise about their synopses when submitting work to agents but Carole said that she always reads the chapters first “to find out if someone can write.” She emphasised, however, that a synopsis must include the ending of the novel.
As she talked about the shortlisted writers’ work a host of dos and don'ts emerged along the way. Here are some of them:
The session ended with Jane asking Carole for one key “nugget of wisdom to take away.” Carole, who receives up to 25 submissions from writers a day (including Saturdays, Sundays and even Christmas Day) didn't hesitate. Do your homework, she said, pointing to the wealth of information on literary agents’ websites about what they are looking for. Carole herself takes on few new clients these days but states on the Blake Friedmann website that she is interested in “good quality commercial and literary fiction, contemporary or historical.” The guidance couldn't be clearer yet writers still persist in sending her everything, from children’s books to science fiction.
“Given how easy it is to find out information these days do a lot of homework first,” she said. “There is nothing more guaranteed to get a fast rejection than if you enrage the agent.”
Emma's latest book, LOVE AND LAUGHTER, was published in November 2013 and is available here.
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