MICHAEL O’MARA TO PUBLISH HIGHLY ANTICIPATED WINTER SURVIVAL GUIDE BY POPULAR INSTAGRAMMER, EMMA MITCHELL

On the 5th of October 2017, Lom Art, the arts and crafts imprint of Michael O’Mara will bring warmth to many homes by publishing MAKING WINTER, a fantastic guide to surviving unbearably cold months. Popular instagrammer, Emma Mitchell, assures us that ‘dishwater after a Sunday roast’ weather is a thing of the past. Juliet Pickering sold world rights, at auction, to Fiona Slater. 

From delicate silver jewellery, paper-craft decorations and crocheted mittens, to foraged infusions, delicious recipes and nature diaries, this book is sure to boost your mood! It is filled with projects, step-by-step instructions and beautiful photographs to take you through every day. MAKING WINTER: A CREATIVE GUIDE FOR SURVIVING THE WINTER MONTHS is the perfect companion to dark evenings, rainy afternoons and winter melancholy, and inspires even the bleakest of days to become creative, full of colour and joy. 

MAKING WINTER has had a lot of success on social media: Emma, who is a design-maker and craft teacher, has a following of close to 100,000 on Instagram. Fiona Slater says that ‘Emma has been bringing cosy, crafting joy to her Instagram followers for a few years now and I couldn’t be more excited to be working with her on her first book. The combination of her scrummy photographs and projects designed to lift your mood during the frosty months makes this so much more than a craft book, and I can’t wait to share it with everyone.’

You can pre-order MAKING WINTER here.

About the author: Emma’s jewellery and crochet designs have been published in Country Living, Mollie Makes, Kirstie Allsopp’s CRAFT and several other national lifestyle and craft titles. She contributed regular articles on craft and creativity to Standard Issue where her articles are amongst the most popular on the site. She has written for the Guardian and discussed the revival of letter-writing on BBC radio. She brought together well-known designers and knitted beard-wearing celebrities to make and write the Mollie Makes Big Comic Relief Crafternoon magazine in 2015 and 2017, which raised significant funds for Comic Relief.

The Making Winter project began on Emma’s blog in 2011 as a creative antidote to the seemingly incessant grey days between November and March. During the winter of 2015/16 a revival of Making Winter had so many participants that it trended on Twitter and became one of the most popular hashtags on Instagram. 

Emma's website

Emma on Instagram

Emma on Twitter

BEAUTIFULLY UNCONVENTIONAL THE TRYST BY MONIQUE ROFFEY PUBLISHED BY DODO INK TODAY

Monique Roffey has combined mythology and erotica to create a powerful and sexually liberated novella that is taking the publishing world by storm. Published today by Dodo Ink, THE TRYST is a ‘throbbing home-wrecker of a tale’ (according to DBC Pierre) and is receiving a rip-tide of media coverage whilst already being reprinted before its date of publication.

In a recent article in The Times, Monique Roffey discusses her journey to sexual discovery after the breakdown of a long-term relationship. Her experience serves as inspiration for THE TRYST which is a literary erotic novella about a married couple, Bill and Jane, whose relationship has grown stale. On the night of the summer solstice they visit a London pub, where they encounter Lila – a mysterious femme fatale. She entrances the couple with half-true, mixed up tales about her life. At closing time, Jane makes an impulsive decision to invite Lilah back to their home. But Jane has made a catastrophic error of judgment, for Lilah is a skilled and ruthless predator, the likes of which few encounter in a lifetime. Isolated and cursed, Jane and Bill are forced to fight for each other, and, in doing so, discover their covert desires.

As well as The Times, Monique has received extensive coverage in The Telegraph, The Sun and The Daily Mail, who have hailed THE TRYST for its honesty and Roffey for her ‘brave confessional’. A sex blog tour has also accompanied the publication of the book, from Eros the Trickster, The Little Death, Thom Collins, Ian D Smith to SSLY. Monique is also interviewed by The Advantages of Age, and featured by The Lonesome Reader as one of the exciting new books published in July.

Monique Roffey is an award-winning novelist. Her most recent novel HOUSE OF ASHES, (Scribner UK) received widespread praise and was shortlisted for the Costa and the BOCAS Prize. ARCHIPELAGO, winner of the OCM BOCAS prize for Caribbean Literature, was published by Scribner in the UK, Viking in the US, and five translation markets.  Her second novel, THE WHITE WOMAN ON THE GREEN BICYCLE, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Encore Prize, among other accolades.

Dodo Ink is a newly established indie press dedicated to publishing daring and difficult fiction. Set up by novelist Sam Mills, book reviewer Thom Cuell and marketing expert Alex Spears, it launched its first list in summer 2016.

Visit Monique’s website.

Monique on Twitter.

Praise for THE TRYST

‘Not a shade of grey within a mile of this book. ... A throbbing homewrecker of a tale, too late to call FIFTY SHADES OF RED.’ – DBC Pierre

‘THE TRYST is a sly, feral, witty, offbeat erotic novella that unsettles the reader, even as it arouses.' - Rowan Pelling, editor, The Amorist


‘I’ve read THE TRYST and was enormously entertained and impressed. It’s wild and witching, at once contemporary and atavistic, with an anarchicsexual energy running through it and a startling frankness, not only about sex, but about love and relationships, gender and power ... a daring write and a consuming read.’ - Bidisha, writer and broadcaster


‘While THE TRYST offers magic and sensuality aplenty, it lays bare the violence that heteronormative couples will do to ‘others’ to keep the home system stoked. It can be read as a fable about intimacy and erotic power. Disturbingly, it can also be read as a fable about the socially established vs. the disposable.’ - Vahni Capildeo, poet, Forward Prize winner


‘Sexy as hell. A cross between the work of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin, THE TRYST weaves the urban and the modern with dark myth. Roffey is a risk taking and masterful storyteller.’ - J Malloy, author of The Story of X

‘Dark and twisty’ debut thriller from L.V. Hay, THE OTHER TWIN, published by Orenda today

L V Hay’s debut psychological thriller, THE OTHER TWIN, is published today in paperback by Orenda Books.

When India falls to her death from a bridge over a railway, her sister, Poppy, returns home to Brighton for the first time in years. Unconvinced by official explanations, Poppy begins her own investigation into India's death. But the deeper she digs, the closer she comes to uncovering deeply buried secrets. Could Matthew Temple, the boyfriend she abandoned, be involved? And what of his powerful and wealthy parents and his twin sister, Ana? Enter the mysterious and ethereal Jenny: the girl Poppy discovers after hacking in to India's laptop. What is exactly is she hiding, and what did India find out about her?

Taking the listener on a breathless ride through the winding lanes of Brighton, into its vibrant party scene and inside the homes of its well-heeled families, THE OTHER TWIN is a startling and up-to-the-minute thriller about the social media world, where resentments and accusations are played out online, where identities are made and remade and where there is no such thing as truth....

The novel is already receiving raving reviews from authors and bloggers alike. Peter James, author of the Roy Grace series, praises Hay’s “sharp, confident writing, as dark and twisty as the Brighton Lanes.” Pail Finch, author of the DS Heckenburg series, describes the novel as a “superb, up-to-the-minute thriller. Prepare to be seriously disturbed.”

Lucy V. Hay is a novelist, script editor and blogger who helps writers via her Bang2write consultancy. She is the associate producer of Brit Thrillers Deviation (2012) and Assassin(2015), both starring Danny Dyer. Lucy is also head reader for the London Screenwriters’ Festival and has written two non-fiction books, Writing & Selling Thriller Screenplays, plus its follow-up about Drama Screenplays. Her next book, WRITING DIVERSE CHARACTERS FOR FICTION, TV OR FILM will be published in August by Kamera books.

Praise for THE OTHER TWIN:

'This chilling, claustrophobic tale set in Brighton introduces an original, fresh new voice in crime fiction.' — Cal Moriarty, author of THE KILLING OF BOBBI LOMAX

‘If your sister died under suspicious circumstances, how far would you go to uncover the truth? L V Hay's THE OTHER TWIN crackles with tension as Poppy's search for answers leads only to more questions, her grief palpable and real as she learns her sister India's deepest secrets. Hays' impressive debut is a complex, twisty, disorienting tale that truly keeps readers guessing until the very end.’ — Karen Dionne, author of THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER.

‘Wonderfully layered and gripping, I had to take breaks just to catch my breath.’ — Jendella Benson, writer and filmmaker

‘A cracker of a debut! I couldn’t put it down,’ – Paula Daly, author of JUST WHAT KIND OF MOTHER ARE YOU

‘The writing shines from every page of this twisted tale … debuts don’t come sharper than this’ — Ruth Dugdall, author of THE WOMAN BEFORE ME

 

LITTLE SUNS by Zakes Mda WINS THE SUNDAY TIMES FICTION PRIZE

LITTLE SUNS by acclaimed South African writer Zakes Mda has won the country’s Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize 2017. The prize seeks to showcase “writing of rare style and imagination, stories that chose the personal over the political, and themes that are fresh and provocative.” This is the second time that Zakes Mda has won this premier national prize, having won the inaugural award in 2001 for HEART OF REDNESS.

The Barry Ronge Fiction Prize was decided by a judging panel consisting of radio personality Africa Melane and Love Books founder Kate Rogan, chaired by journalist and author, Rehana Rossouw. The judges said that LITTLE SUNS was a “novel of rich, magical African imagery.” They applauded Mda for “bringing history to glorious life, in writing that is unique to him.” ‘Zakes Mda is on song with this book,” said one judge, “it brings people from our past gorgeously to life.’

You can read the full text of Zakes’ Mda’s powerful acceptance speech here about the important role of fiction in finding truth and fighting corruption: “The truth of fiction can give context and shed new insights on the stories unearthed by your investigative reporting. It gives them longevity and digestibility. Fiction is even more essential in this age when shamelessness and impunity among the ruling elite and ‘corruption fatigue’ in the populace are leading South Africa to perdition.”

LITTLE SUNS begins in 1903. A lame and frail Malangana – 'Little Suns' – searches for his beloved Mthwakazi after many lonely years spent in exile. Mthwakazi was the young woman he had fallen in love with twenty years earlier, before the assassination of Magistrate Hamilton Hope began a war that ripped the two of them apart.

Intertwined with Malangana's story is the account of Hope – a colonial magistrate who, in the late nineteenth century, was undermining the local kingdoms of the Eastern Cape in order to bring them under the control of the British. It was he who wanted to coerce Malangana’s king and his people, the amaMpondomise, into joining his battle – a scheme Malangana’s conscience could not allow. Based on real historical events – after these frontier wars were quelled, Zakes Mda’s own ancestors were exiled to Lesotho – Mda has drawn on published accounts and the oral stories of family members and local praise poets, woven together with his uniquely vigorous prose, historical insight and humour.

Umuzi published in Southern Africa, and Jacaranda Books will publish on their Global Classics list in 2018.

The Barry Ronge Fiction Prize is awarded as part of the Sunday Times Literary Awards and along with its twin prize, the Alan Paton Award for Non-Fiction, is one of South Africa’s most prestigious prizes. The winner goes home with R100,000. Other shortlisted books included Kopano Matlwa's PERIOD PAIN and Yewande Omotoso's THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR.

Zakes Mda is one of South Africa’s pre-eminent writers, and many of his era-defining plays and novels are hailed as classics of the literary canon. He divides his time between South Africa and the U.S., working as a professor of Creative Writing at Ohio University, director of the Southern African Multimedia AIDS Trust in Sophiatown, and dramaturge at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg. He is a patron of the Etisalat Prize.

Visit Zakes' website. 

Zakes on Twitter.


Praise for Zakes Mda:

‘The great South African novelist of his generation, a writer rich in both imagination and ironic political attitude.’ The Philadelphia Inquirer

 ‘A voice for which one should feel not only affection but admiration’ – New York Times

‘It’s a different kind of South African literature, a South African magical realism …I can’t wait to read more’. Barbara Kingsolver on WAYS OF DYING

‘In novel after novel, Zakes Mda seems to have cultivated a mode of writing in which the realistic and the magical co-exist with unruffled ease.’ – Harry Garuba, Independent

'Zakes Mda is among the most acclaimed exponents of a new artistic freedom. His fiction has a beguiling lyricism and humour.' – Maya Jaggi, The Guardian