Icon Books have acquired THE ELEMENTS: A MEMOIR OF GRIEF, LOSS AND TRANSFORMATION by journalist Kat Lister. Kiera Jamison, senior commissioning editor at Icon Books, acquired UK, Commonwealth (excl. Canada) and European Rights from Juliet Pickering. The moving memoir which will be published in September 2021, chronicles Lister’s experience of widowhood in her mid-thirties. In addition to detailing Lister’s personal experience the book will also explore grief theories and cultural attitudes towards death and the language we use to process it.
Kat Lister says, ‘I began writing to understand my grief, but I continued writing to reach anyone who’s ever lost anything significant in their lives. THE ELEMENTS is a story of love and pain, but it’s also a book propelled by hope — a wild and radical feeling that can prevail even in the depths of trauma and despair. It was so important for me to find the right home for this memoir and I am so thrilled that I found it at Icon.’
Kiera Jamison says, ‘THE ELEMENTS was unexpectedly enticing given its subject: a visceral, emotional and cerebral examination of love and a broken heart, identity, and the shifting seasons of grief. Kat’s writing transfixed me, and her original approach connected with the Icon Books team instantly as an important contribution to the literature on understanding grief.’
Kat Lister is a writer and editor based in London and has worked in magazine media for over a decade. Beginning her career as a music journalist she spent her early twenties on the news desk at the legendary music newspaper, New Musical Express (NME) — where she met her husband, Pat Long. She went on to specialise in women’s issues, writing widely for publications including Vice, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Refinery29, where she was appointed Contributing Editor. In 2017, she joined the editorial team at women’s website The Pool quickly becoming a freelance features and news editor until its demise in 2019. Since her husband’s death in 2018, she has focused on investigating her experience of grief, writing widely-circulated essays and features for The Sunday Times Magazine, Sunday Times Style and The Pool.