Edward Carey’s FOULSHAM out today from Hot Key

The wait is over. FOULSHAM, the second book in Edward Carey’s much-praised IREMONGER trilogy, is out from Hot Key today in the UK. It is published in a beautiful hardback complete with illustrations by Edward himself.

Foulsham, London's great filth repository, is bursting at the seams. In the Iremonger family offices, Grandfather Umbitt Iremonger broods: in his misery and fury at the people of London, he has found a way of making everyday objects assume human shape, and turning real people into objects. Abandoned in the depths of the Heaps, Lucy Pennant has been rescued by a terrifying creature, Binadit Iremonger – more animal than human. She is desperate and determined to find Clod. But unbeknownst to her, Clod has become a golden sovereign, being passed as currency from hand to hand all around Foulsham. Everywhere people are searching for him, desperate to get hold of this dangerous Iremonger, who, it is believed, has the power to bring the mighty Umbitt down. But all around the city, things, everyday things, are twitching into life...

The Iremongers are taking over the Hot Key tumblr this week in celebration – visit to see illustrations by Edward Carey and more!

Be sure to visit Waterstones’ flagship store in Piccadilly for an exclusive chance to see Edward Carey’s illustrations on the chalk board and their brand new illustrators’ gallery.

There will also be two chances for fans to catch Edward Carey at Edinburgh Book Festival this year. He will be talking about creating characters with Nathan Filer and Matthew Quick, and will also be doing a children’s event to tell young readers all about Clod.

Clod last appeared in HEAP HOUSE, published by Hot Key last summer. It was recommended on the Booktrust Christmas Gifts for Children List 2013 and listed by The Sunday Times as one of the Top Children’s Books of 2013. Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton called it ‘delightful, eccentric, heartfelt, surprising, philosophical’ and her ‘favourite novel for children published this year’. The paperback is currently available.

Rights to HEAP HOUSE have been sold in 9 territories. It was published by Harper Collins in Canada in March and recently selected by the Toronto Star in their round-up of summer reads for kids:

'For Gothic unease, try Edward Carey's IREMONGER Book 1: HEAP HOUSE a story of mildew and mould that despite its rubbish heap setting, sparkles with ghoulish interest and Gorey-esque drawings.' - Deidre Baker, The Toronto Star.

Overlook publish HEAP HOUSE in the US in October.

Novelist, visual artist and playwright Edward Carey is the author of two acclaimed novels, published in many countries around the world. OBSERVATORY MANSIONS was shortlisted for the Borders Discover New Writers Award and ALVA AND IRVA was longlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Literary Award. Both were accompanied by artworks by the author.

Follow Edward on Twitter

Visit the Iremongers on Edward’s website

Praise for HEAP HOUSE:

‘Edward Carey's HEAP HOUSE-- delightful, eccentric, heartfelt, surprising, philosophical, everything that a novel for children should be.’ – Eleanor Catton, author of THE LUMINARIES

‘IREMONGER torques and tempers our memories of Dickensian London into a singularly jaunty and creepy tale of agreeable misfits. Read it by gas lamp, with a glass of absinthe at your wrist and a fireplace poker by your knee. ’    -- Gregory Maguire, author of WICKED

'I cannot recommend HEAP HOUSE by Edward Carey enough. The best book of its kind since GORMENGHAST (& more exciting)' – Gregory Norminton

‘Fabulously strange and in the tradition of Mervyn Peake... Astonishing and inventive, it calls out to be read.' – Sunday Times Best Children’s Books of 2013 

Remembrance themed "Poppy's Day" by Jayne Kirkham is coming to CBeebies Radio

Poppy's Day tells the story of a little girl who, on her way home from the dentist, notices people wearing red poppies on their coats. She and her family talk about the sentiment behind the tradition of wearing poppies..

The story is read by Falklands War veteran Simon Weston and is a powerful as it is poignant, a reminder about how important it is to remember not just the events of history, but the people.

Poppy's Day will appear on the CBeebies website at midnight on Tuesday 5 August and will be available online and to download for seven days.

CBeebies Radio is a daily web-based radio show for pre-school children, designed to encourage listening and imagination skills. Click here for more information on CBeebies Radio, and here for more information about Poppy's Day.

UPDATE: Poppy's Day will be available again on Remembrance Sunday, 9th November 2014, on CBeebies Radio via the CBeebies Website.

A scorching AFRICAN SKY out from Quercus now

Tony Park’s World War II thriller AFRICAN SKY is out in paperback from Quercus, released on 31 July.

AFRICAN SKY is a page-turning aventure set in Rhodesia, 1943: Squadron Leader Paul Bryant has been unable to fly a plane ever since a fatal bombing mission over Germany. Relegated to a desk job training new recruits, his life is lacklustre until one of his trainees is found raped and murdered. Pip Lovejoy, a local volunteer policewoman, has her own tragedies to forget; when she hears about the murder, however, she joins forces with Paul to investigate. Their mutual attraction intensifies as the case becomes more complicated, and the involvement of controversial heiress Catherine de Beers threatens to ruin everything.

Upcoming4.me wrote ‘AFRICAN SKY has everything from hair-raising flying action to espionage, backstabbing, sex and love but scratch the surface and you'll discover hidden depth and well-developed characters.’

Australian writer Tony Park fell in love with South Africa on a short trip in 1995 and he and his wife now divide their time between Sydney and their home in the African bush near Kruger Park. He is author of many bestselling action-packed adventure thrillers for Macmillan Australia and Quercus in the UK. His newest book THE HUNTER will be published in October 2014 by Macmillan Australia and Quercus in South Africa.

Praise for TONY PARK:

'An author who is starting to challenge the veteran Wilbur Smith for the title of 'master of the African thriller'' -- Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail

'Tony Park is one of Australia's best thriller writers and his African-based novels are consistently entertaining and thought-provoking.' -- Canberra Times

'Park's heroes are tough, blokey types - soldiers and coppers - and his heroines sassy and smart, but Africa always steals the show…a great way to spend a winter evening, transported to somewhere warm and exotic.' -- Georgia Gowing, The Independent Weekly

Deon Meyer’s COBRA out today

Benny Griessel is back! Deon Meyer’s latest novel COBRA is published in the UK today by Hodder and is also being launched in English in South Africa by Jonathan Ball, with a very busy author tour. Audiobook fans can order the Audible edition now too.

Why would a mathematics professor from Cambridge University, renting a holiday home outside Cape Town, require a false identity and three bodyguards? And where is he, now that they are dead? The only clue to the bodyguards' murder is the snake engraved on the shell casings of the bullets that killed them. Investigating the massacre, Benny Griessel and his team find themselves being drawn into an international conspiracy with shocking implications…

Read the first chapter of COBRA here.

Glimpse the world of COBRA here, in stunning photographs.

Hear Deon Meyer introduce you to his hero Benny Griessel here.

You can read what his editor Nick Sayers has to say about the novels, and test your Afrikaans, here.

COBRA was chosen by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the Top Ten Mystery and Thriller for Fall and ‘Thriller of the Week’ on the very popular Dutch thriller & crime fiction community Crimezone.nl. In his home territory South Africa, COBRA (published in Afrikaans by Human & Rousseau as KOBRA) shot to Number 1 on Afrikaans publication last year, knocking Wilbur Smith off the top spot and beating off all international competition in English as well. 

10 international publishers have signed up to COBRA with new deals regularly signed for ‘The best crime writer on the planet’ across the globe. COBRA will be published in France and Germany this October, and Deon will tour in both countries.

Mike Ripley from Shotsmag has nothing but praise for COBRA:

‘A masterful new thriller.  This is terrific stuff:  fine plotting, superb characterisation, a constant thread of suspense, a multi-ethnic cast and an intriguing setting. It also comes with a glossary of South African terms and if COBRA doesn’t win at least one major prize this year, then someone needs a good snotskoot blikseming.’

Deon Meyer will be on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row today at 19:15 GMT to talk about the novel, so make sure you tune in.

Visit Deon's website here.

Follow Deon on Twitter.

Praise for Deon Meyer:

‘A master on vintage form… He is a defining novelist of modern South Africa.’ – Barry Forshaw, Books of the Year 2012, Independent

‘Deon Meyer is one of the best crime writers on the planet.’ – Mail on Sunday

 'With Deon Meyer you can't go wrong. He's a writer whose work I admire, wait for and then devour.' -- Michael Connelly

24 (+15) hours in Kampala with Commonwealth Writers

Juliet Pickering reports on her whirlwind visit to Uganda for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Thursday 12th 

Readers, I took that seat

2.30pm: Sat on the plane next to a guy who looks about 12, who tells me he's on a Christian mission to Uganda. He's American, has never left even his state before, and seems pretty scared of what's ahead. I re-read the shortlisted stories before we watch Frozen in friendly silence until a fellow missionary comes along and takes the mickey out of him for watching a ‘girly’ film. Not very Christian, to say the least. 

 Two disgusting plane meals later...

 10.30pm I get out of the airport to find my transfer, and realise that there were six other people on the plane that Commonwealth Writers have brought over too. Hooray! We all pile into a large taxi with our cases teetering dangerously over our heads, and head to the hotel.

 11.30pm I'm sharing an apartment with Vimbia Shaire, a freelance editor who is teaching workshops the following week. She's chatty and lovely, and despite the lack of proper milk in the apartment and therefore being unable to drink a good cup of tea, we have a lengthy chat about all things publishing; often working with more academic titles, her experience is very different to mine.

It's good, but it's not P G Tips

Friday 13th 

8am I peruse the selection of exotic breakfast dishes: baked beans, curried vegetables, chips, chicken foot... Yup, chicken foot: in breadcrumbs. It's not bad, and goes well with the cassava wedges. 

Breakfast, avec pied

I get chatting to Myn Garcia, Deputy Director of the foundation, who delicately nibbles a bit of fruit while I scoff my chicken foot and explain what I'm doing there. I get the sense that the Commonwealth Writers people (especially Lucy Hannah and Emma D'Costa) take on a hell of a workload, and travel a huge amount to promote literature and work with writers all over the world. An incredible and varied job to have, although exhausting.

 Lucy asks me to join them for a non-fiction workshop at midday, to talk about the UK publishing industry and the role of the agent.

 10am I wander the compound but it's fairly self-contained. It alternately rains like crappery and then the sun shines hot and strong. No chance to park myself by the pool and read The Miniaturist, damn it!

 11am I am taken to the hotel where the workshops are being held, and introduced to a group of non-fiction writers - who have come from Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Kenya - and who are being taught by Ellah Allfrey (Chair of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize) and Mark Gevisser. David Godwin also shows up, as he's in town for literary events the following week.

Non-fiction workshopping

We are asked about the role of agents in the UK, and when we want to see material etc. We're reminded about how different things are in the Ugandan/East Africa publishing world, when we're asked a lot about book ideas being stolen by unscrupulous publishers. I mean publishers are unscrupulous the world over, obviously (to any publishers reading this - love you guys!), but the writers' concerns were about them telling a publisher their non-fiction ideas at an early stage, and the publisher then taking that idea and publishing that book with someone else. I got the impression that the publishing world is pretty corrupt there. It might be related to the fact that there are no agents, of course.

 1am LUNCH. I eat shredded goat and it is surprisingly delicious. We also chat to the writers who are all kinds of interesting. There are quite a few political memoirists: writers who have suffered because of their political beliefs, or who have lost family/home/identity in genocide. Their experiences are varied and fascinating.

 I also meet Billy Kahora from the Kwani Trust, a literary charity based in Kenya "dedicated to developing quality creative writing and committed to the growth of the creative industry through the publishing and distribution of contemporary African writing".

 3pm I do a podcast interview for the Commonwealth Writers website, with top Dos and Don'ts when submitting to agents.

 4pm Back in our room, Vimbai and I are peckish and order some food. You would only have believed the size of the chocolate cake I was brought if I'd taken a photo instead of greedily attacking it immediately. One word: BRICK. Good to know that giant hunks of cake are enjoyed the world over.

 6pm Having donned our party frocks, Ellah, Vimbai and I head to the Short Story Prize party.

Photocall for the non-fiction writers

After an hour of drinks, canapes and chat by the poolside (tough life) – during which I learn that to be 34 and unmarried means I am an ANCIENT SPINSTER in Uganda; I so enjoyed my conversations with the writers about their lives - Romesh Gunesekera announces Jennifer Makumbi as the winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2014, for her story about a Ugandan woman living in Britain, whose husband dies unexpectedly, leading her to discover he has been leading a double life with a second family in Uganda. She's a worthy winner, and you can read her story on the Granta website here.

Jennifer reads an extract of her winning story

At 9pm I dash to my room to change, and go to reception to wait for a taxi to the airport. Mike van Graan stops by and we introduce ourselves.

 9.30pm INSANE drive to the airport. The roads are packed, mostly with tiny scooters carrying three people, zooming lethally between traffic. I try not to wince as scooters regularly scrape our car bonnet. This was one of the best bits of the trip: 90mins of cruising through Kampala as people gathered at roadsides to eat from smoking food stalls, gather round a tiny TV or sell gum and nuts to passing cars (my lovely driver bought me a pack of Juicy Fruit as we sat in a long queue). Because you can't walk around town whenever and wherever you like, this was the closest I got to seeing Kampala. And it's worth noting that if you own a new and/or large car in Kampala, you can turn your lights on full beam and drive along the wrong side of the road and everyone will get out of your way because they're in awe of your amazing car *eyeroll*. 

 1am It's announced that the plane is grounded because it's been struck by lightning on the way in, and BA have to check it over before we fly again. No argument from me! Check that mofo twice!

 2am The one hour delay becomes a 15hr delay, and so ensues a long night/day of shunting around from airport to hotel to airport to plane. But despite this, it's been totally worth it.

 Follow-up: I've recently emailed some of the shortlisted writers from all over the Commonwealth; stories I particularly enjoyed included one about a young girl’s friendship with a gardener that’s destroyed by racial tensions; another which told of a teenager dealing with coming of age and the calm wisdom her grandmother could offer her; and a third about a brief, meaningful but then discarded love affair in Paris. I'll begin talking to the authors about their writing and what they're working on, in the hopes that some good fiction might come my way as a result!

 I'm really pleased that this trip introduced me to two groups of writers who might not usually think to submit to a UK agent. This is exactly what I hoped for when we began the association with Commonwealth Writers last year, and huge thanks are due to Emma, Lucy, Keenda and the brilliant team there, for making this happen and taking me along to Uganda.