Lyrical memoir by Costa Book of the Year winner Hannah Lowe won at auction by Scribner

Credit: Rii Schroer

Hannah Lowe’s THE WOMAN IN THE CHINESE COLLAR, winner of the 2023 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award, has been acquired for publication in a heated five-way auction by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Deputy Publishing Director Kris Doyle acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) rights from Isobel Dixon. The book will be published in Spring 2026 as Scribner’s lead non-fiction title for the season.

The book is a lyrical, investigative memoir that investigates the fascinating life of Hannah’s Chinese–Jamaican aunt Nelsa, touching on themes of race, immigration and the spectre of male violence.

Hannah Lowe said: ‘I’m delighted THE WOMAN IN THE CHINESE COLLAR has found a home with Scribner in the UK. The book is the culmination of years of research and investigation into the life of my aunt Nelsa Lowe in Jamaica, and I’m so pleased it will be in the caring hands of Kris Doyle and his team.’

‘Everyone here was blown away by the story of Hannah’s “legendary” aunt Nelsa,’ added Kris Doyle. ‘This is a book about universal themes of family, inheritance and belonging – don’t we all want to know where we truly come from? – but the specific socio-political context also broadens the reach and resonance. Page by enthralling page, Hannah’s deft and thoughtful prose made the unknowable knowable: the past is not just there for the taking, but this gorgeous act of reclamation, recovery and reconstruction is a vital work of literature that grips from the first moment. The book is too original to be easily compared with others, but readers who have enjoyed recent non-fiction by Hisham Matar, Laura Cumming and Lea Ypi would find much pleasure here.’

Isobel Dixon said: ‘Hannah’s lyrical and narrative skills, so beautifully interwoven in her poetry, combine powerfully in this fierce, tender and searching memoir. It was no surprise that many publishers loved this magnificent, multi-faceted work, but we’re so happy that Hannah’s special book has found such a great UK home with Kris Doyle and the excellent team at Scribner.’

Propelled by a single portrait photograph, THE WOMAN IN THE CHINESE COLLAR is a lyrical, investigative family memoir that sees poet Hannah Lowe embark on a search across time and space to recover a lost story of a woman making her way in a man’s world. Combing through history and memory, Lowe traces the journey of her Afro–Chinese aunt Nelsa, a herbalist and healer, and renowned restaurant and nightclub hostess in Kingston, Jamaica.

Politics, poverty, disability, sex work and crime combine in this narrative of diaspora and home, as Lowe deftly and tenderly interrogates the role of writing and research in tracing routes and roots, and how to excavate the life of a marginalised woman when the archives are empty.

About Hannah Lowe

Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. Her 2021 poetry collection, THE KIDS, won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2021. THE KIDS also won the Costa Poetry Award 2021, was shortlisted for the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize, was a Poetry Book Society Choice for Autumn 2021 and an Irish Times and Guardian poetry book of the year.

Her first book-length collection, CHICK, won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize and was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. Her second full-length collection, CHAN, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016, followed by a pamphlet, THE NEIGHBOURHOOD (Out-Spoken Press) in 2019. Her prose memoir, LONG TIME NO SEE, exploring her relationship with her half-Chinese, half-Jamaican immigrant father, was published by Periscope in 2014.

Praise for Hannah Lowe

‘We were enthralled by Hannah Lowe’s inventive approach to conjuring Nelsa, her Afro-Chinese Jamaican aunt. Remarkably, Lowe evokes Nelsa through a single portrait photo and along the way excavates other marginalised women whose lives are rarely noted in official archives.’ – Judges of the Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award

‘It’s joyous, it’s warm and it’s completely universal. It’s crafted and skilful but also accessible… the sort of book that you could hand to anybody because you would know that everyone would get something out of it.’ – Reeta Chakrabarti, chair of Costa Prize judges, on THE KIDS

‘When you finish this poetically told book, you know you have been gifted a treasure’ – Kerry Young on LONG TIME, NO SEE

‘A poet with a commanding style; her voice is entirely her own, both rich and laconic… springing from the page with vitality, rue and insight.’ – Penelope Shuttle

Kathryn Faulke’s ‘extraordinary’ debut selected for BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week

EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE, the ‘life-affirming and utterly humbling’ (Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller) memoir by care worker Kathryn Faulke has been selected as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week. Published on 24 October by Penguin Fig Tree, this vital and vivid memoir will be serialised on the radio station at 11.45 each day throughout the week, starting on Monday 28 October, with the full series available on BBC Sounds for the next 30 days. The book will be read by Ayesha Antoine, who also narrated Penguin’s audiobook, and was abridged and produced by Jill Waters of the Waters Company for BBC Radio 4.

You can listen or catch up online at BBC Sounds here.

This week Kathryn also featured on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week, where she was invited to discuss the adult social care crisis, and how to fix it, alongside journalist and editor David Goodhart (author of THE CARE DILEMMA), social policy expert Anna Coote, and host Adam Rutherford. You can listen to their discussion on BBC Sounds here – where Adam Rutherford says EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE is ‘full of love and full of warmth’ and Anna Coote adds that ‘Kathryn is the greatest recruitment officer for carers – everyone should read her book.’

After the programme EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE leaped up to Number 40 on Amazon’s ‘Hot New Releases’ list. The Daily Mail also featured an extract from EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE and Kathryn was interviewed by the Guardian about her experiences and writing the book.

Kate – as Kathryn is referred to in EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE – never expected to become a home care worker. But when she left her senior role in the NHS, burnt-out and disheartened, she thought caring for people in their own homes would be a simpler job. Despite being determined not to become too involved with her 'customers', she soon found herself developing firm friendships, forging deep connections and bearing witness to the extraordinary drama to be found in ordinary lives.

With energy, compassion and clarity, her memoir gives an astonishing insight into this unsung – and often maligned – profession, and into the hidden lives of the housebound and infirm. From Beryl who screams like a banshee whenever Kate tries to wash her, but collapses in giggles when her toes are tickled, to bawdy Mr Radbert who 'promised to give me his car when he can remember where he left it'.

EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE is a clear-eyed about the challenges facing the NHS and the care system. But it is above all a celebration of humanity and of the life-changing impact of caring, on those who offer it and those who receive it.

About Kathryn Faulke

Kathryn Faulke was runner-up in the Wasafiri International New Writing Prize in 2020, and in 2021 she won the Mslexia Memoir Prize for an earlier version of her debut, EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE. She has now moved out of London but continues to work in care in the South East of England.

EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE: A Journey into the Heart of Carework is a vivid, moving and unforgettable memoir recounting Kathryn Faulke’s experiences as a careworker in London. It was selected as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and has received widespread praise and media attention.

Praise for EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE

‘A deeply compelling story of one of the most unsung professions, brimming with anecdotes to make you both laugh and cry. A vital book.’ – Anna Bonet, ‘The Best New Books Out in October’, i

‘Marvellously life-affirming and utterly humbling.’ – Caroline Sanderson, Editor’s Choice, The Bookseller

‘Not just essential reading for anyone curious about the realities of care work in this country; it’s also the work of a natural storyteller, and a book full of empathy, humour, and – yes – care.  All kinds of brilliant.’ – Jon McGregor

‘An extraordinary and important book that will make you laugh, cry, admire and despair in equal measure.  Beautifully written, it is both heart-warming and inspiring… a wonderful achievement.’ – Dr Sir David Haslam

‘Kathryn Faulke is an extraordinary person and this is an extraordinary account of what it is to care for others; of the labour of caring, which is both physical and emotional, but also of the joy of caring and the blessing that there is in giving time and attention to others… This book is a compassionate invitation to get up close to the human condition and those who attend to it.’ – Gwen Adshead

‘I am in love with Kate's storytelling, her ability to see the person and her fabulous, dry humour. This is a book about caring, and it's also a book about being in love with humanity’ – Kathryn Mannix

‘This is a fantastic and important book. It reads like a novel, complete with vivid characters, humour and tragedy. Above all, it is an insight into the hidden life of a care worker. I was lost in admiration.’ – Tom Shakespeare

‘Kathryn is the greatest recruitment officer for carers – everyone should read her book.’ – Anna Coote, Principal Fellow at the New Economics Foundation

‘EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE talks about what it’s actually like to be a carer: it’s full of love and full of warmth.’ – Adam Rutherford

Hodder Studio wins auction for UNDERCURRENT: A CORNISH MEMOIR OF POVERTY, NATURE AND RESILIENCE, a vital, thoughtful and powerful memoir by Natasha Carthew

Editorial Director Harriet Poland has bought UK and British Commonwealth Rights after a multi-publisher auction, from Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency. The book will be published in Summer 2023.

UNDERCURRENT is a memoir of rural poverty and escape that blends nature-writing with personal testimony and investigation. Cornwall has long been the heartland of the second home, a county of staggering beauty and striking inequality, where working-class families are pushed out of the villages of their childhood and ignored by a political system not built to protect them. Natasha Carthew grew up in a Cornish village that felt a world away from the Rick Stein seafronts, experiencing a childhood of perilous instability and limited opportunity while drinking in the beauty of the world around her. She found solace in the local mobile library, and freedom in the written word. In UNDERCURRENT she comes full circle, returning to the place of her birth to make sense of her journey away from it.

 This memoir will explore the complex ecosystem of rural poverty, including precarious employment opportunities, limited education and healthcare resources, and the ravages poverty plays upon the human mind and body. It is also a love letter to a landscape that is among the most beautiful in the world, an Eden of natural magnificence and a refuge for the spirit. Natasha’s writing has always connected the beauty of the world with its harshest lessons, and in her first non-fiction book she reveals a powerful truth about society.

 Natasha Carthew is the author of three YA novels (Bloomsbury), an adult novel, ALL RIVERS RUN FREE (Riverrun), several books of poetry, and a contributor to HAG: FORGOTTEN FOLKTALES RETOLD (Virago), and to WOMEN ON NATURE (Unbound). She is a regular public voice on working class stories, has written for several national newspapers and recorded essays for BBC Radio broadcast.   She is also the Founder and Artistic Director of The Working Class Writers’ Festival.

 Natasha Carthew says: ‘It was incredibly important to me that UNDERCURRENT my love letter to Cornwall, was placed into the hands of a creative, compassionate editor, an editor who, whilst treating my memoir with care and consideration, would not be afraid to challenge the picture-postcard image of a County that in truth is ravaged by severe poverty; I’m delighted to say that Harriet Poland is without doubt that editor. With Hodder Studio I know that I have found my true literary home, a publisher of innovation and verve, I can think of no better place to publish this, my heartland story.’

 Harriet Poland comments: ‘Of many society-shifting events of the two years, the great migration to ‘the country’ is perhaps the one that will leave the longest mark. What is a privilege to some is the slow destruction of a way of life to others, and this book is a testament to the impact of rural inequality. Natasha, as ever, balances beauty, intimacy and truth in her writing, and this memoir is a vitally important and moving record of lives beyond the M25.’

You can pre-order the book at Waterstones here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/undercurrent/natasha-carthew/9781399706476

Follow Natasha on Twitter and visit her website.

HELEN WALMSLEY JOHNSON’S POWERFUL MEMOIR, LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO, OUT TODAY

Helen Walmsley Johnson’s brave and unflinching memoir on coercive control, LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO, is published today by Macmillan in hardback and ebook. Helen’s frank account of life in an abusive relationship is a valuable read that opens up an important conversation about what coercive control is, and the fight to overcome it.

For more than two years, BBC Radio 4’s The Archers ran a disturbing storyline centred on Helen Tichener’s abuse at the hands of her husband Rob. Not the kind of abuse that leaves a bruise, but the sort of coercive control that breaks your spirit and makes it almost impossible to walk away. As she listened to the unfolding story, Helen Walmsley-Johnson was forced to confront her own agonising past.

Helen’s first husband controlled her life, from the people she saw to what was in her bank account. He alienated her from friends and family and even from their three daughters. Eventually, he threw her out and she painfully began to rebuild her life. Then, divorced and in her early forties, she met Franc. Kind, charming, considerate Franc. For ten years she would be in his thrall, even when he too was telling her what to wear, what to eat, even what to think.

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO is Helen’s candid and utterly gripping memoir of how she was trapped by a smiling abuser, not once but twice. It is a vital guide to recognising, understanding and surviving this sinister form of abuse and its often terrible legacy. It is also an inspirational account of how one woman found the courage to walk away.

You can read extracts from LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO in both YOU magazine, and The Times Magazine. Yesterday, Helen appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire show, talking openly about the abuse she endured in her past relationships. She will be attending the Southbank Centre’s Women of the World festival tomorrow, joining a panel to discuss the how shame is used to control women. In June, she will be speaking at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival.

Helen Walmsley-Johnson was the author of the Guardian’s popular ‘The Vintage Years’ column, on older women and style. She worked for the Daily Telegraph, before joining the Guardian as Alan Rusbridger’s PA for seven years. Her book about middle-age, THE INVISIBLE WOMAN, was published to great acclaim in 2015. She lives in Rutland.

Follow Helen on Twitter

Praise for LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO:

‘A brave and gripping book…Her book, part-memoir, part self-help unpicks exactly what happened to her, demonstrating just how blithely easy it is to succumb to this form of domestic abuse, but critically it’s also about how to recognise it, survive it, and rebuild your life in the aftermath.’ — The Bookseller

‘Walmsley-Johnson has succeeded in her fundamental aim: to offer a valuable map of coercive abuse. She has also written a warming, subtle and realistic narrative of recovery.’ — Terri Apter, The Times Literary Supplement

Praise for THE INVISIBLE WOMEN:

‘THE INVISIBLE WOMAN always speaks to me, and for me. It's about saying up yours to the cult of youth, but also about seeing the life of the 50 + as hilariously funny (not unlike the life of the 15-year-old, when you come to think about it).’ — Professor Mary Beard

‘THE INVISIBLE WOMAN remains a warm, companionable book with a tart aftertaste. Above all – and this is perhaps not quite its intention – it is a reminder to all of us, man, woman, young or getting on a bit, that, no matter how solid our lives seem, we are all of us one bad decision or single piece of rotten luck away from losing everything. And for that we should be both grateful and prepared.’ — Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

‘I imagined this book as a witty riposte to ageing, and in some ways it is. But it’s much more than that. It’s full of serious insights. The author, approaching 60 at the time of writing, tells us about ageing and about how it seems to have changed in her lifetime. She makes the point that, years ago, retirement was “a reward” but now it “could be seen as the punishment”. She is excellent, too, on midlife crises, the death of parents, memory, and how to deal with the passing of time.' — Evening Standard

LUCY MANGAN’S MEMOIR, BOOKWORM, PUBLISHED BY SQUARE PEG

An enchanting memoir on childhood reading, BOOKWORM by Lucy Mangan, is published in hardback and ebook today by Square Peg. Lucy revisits childhood favourites in this immersive read, reflecting on what these stories meant as a young reader, and how these meanings have changed over time. Jacqueline Wilson has praised BOOKWORM as ‘passionate, witty, informed, and gloriously opinionated'. 

When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one.

She was whisked away to Narnia, Kirrin Island, and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. She wandered the countryside with Milly-Molly-Mandy, and played by the tracks with the Railway Children. With CHARLOTTE’S WEB she discovered Death and with Judy Blume it was Boys. No wonder she only left the house for her weekly trip to the library or to spend her pocket money on amassing her own at home.

In BOOKWORM, Lucy revisits her childhood reading with wit, love and gratitude. She relives our best-loved books, their extraordinary creators, and looks at the thousand subtle ways they shape our lives. She also disinters a few forgotten treasures to inspire the next generation of bookworms and set them on their way. Bringing the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life – prompting endless re-readings, rediscoveries, and, inevitably, fierce debate – Lucy brilliantly uses them to tell her own story, that of a born, and unrepentant, bookworm.

Lucy Mangan is a journalist and a writer for the Guardian. She has written for most major women’s magazines, including Grazia, Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan, and has a weekly column in Stylist magazine. She was named Columnist of the Year at PPA Awards in 2013. Her works include MY FAMILY AND OTHER DISASTERS, HOPSCOTCH AND HANDBAGS: The Essential Guide to Being a Girl, and THE RELUCTANT BRIDE. A commemoration of 50 years of Roald Dahl's CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, INSIDE CHARLIE'S CHOCOLATE FACTORY was published by Puffin UK/US in 2014.

Visit Lucy’s Guardian page

Follow Lucy on Twitter

Praise for BOOKWORM:

‘Throughout BOOKWORM [Mangan] artfully evokes that peculiar magic of reading as a child…Deliciously unrepentant, Mangan’s BOOKWORM makes a timely case not just for how vital reading is, but also for rereading books as a child, and how reading remains consoling, fortifying and, sometimes, magical.’ — Helen Davies, The Times

‘A wonderful romp through the pages of childhood, illuminated by wisdom, humour and enthusiasm.’ — Bernard Cornwell

‘Absolutely gorgeous. I felt like this was written just for me, and I think everyone will feel this way.’ — Jenny Colgan

'Beautiful and moving... It will kickstart a cascade of nostalgia for countless people' — Marian Keyes

‘Mangan is writing to and for her fellow book junkies, the ones who can’t leave the house without a book (or three) in their bag, for whom even the thought of doing so brings them out in a cold sweat. BOOKWORM invites us to relive and re-evaluate our own childhood reading, and has the good manners to entertain us along the way.’ — Claire Hennessy, Headstuff

‘What a treat! If you remember reading any of these for the first time, or just identify as a bookworm in general this book is such a delight…I can’t think of a better tribute to the power of reading…an ideal gift for any bookworm you know.’ — Bee Reader