Grace Link and Michael Richardson Finalists in C21 Dramaseries Competition

A huge congratulations to media clients Grace Link and Michael Richardson, who have both secured places in the final of this year’s C21Media Dramaseries Script Competition. Of the 21-script shortlist, 6 were finalists, meaning that Blake Friedmann clients make up one third of the final.

Next for Michael and Grace, they will be attending December’s C21 International Drama Summit as part of Content London 2019, where they will have the chance to pitch their series concept. The winner will receive $10,000 in development funding and an option from Studio21 for their script. Learn more here.

If you’d like to learn more about these clients, click here to contact Michael’s agent, and here to contact Grace’s agent.

DOUBLE SHORTLISTING FOR JOSEPH O’CONNOR’S SHADOWPLAY AT THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS

Joseph O’Connor’s extraordinary novel SHADOWPLAY has been shortlisted for the Eason Novel of the Year Award and the RTÉ Radio One Listeners’ Choice Award at the 2019 An Post Irish Book Awards. The An Post Irish Book Awards celebrate and promote Irish writing to a wide range of readers. Winners will be announced on 20 November in The Convention Centre Dublin.

See more on the shortlists here:

https://www.irishbookawards.irish/award/eason-novel-of-the-year-2019/

https://www.irishbookawards.irish/award/rte-radio-1-listeners-choice-award-2019/

Readers can vote here: https://www.irishbookawards.irish/vote2019/

Harvill Secker published SHADOWPLAY in the UK and Canada in June 2019: it was described as a ‘literary highlight of 2019’ by The Sunday Times and has received rapturous reviews. W.F. Howes published audio in the UK and Dreamscape will publish the US audio edition. Europa will publish in the US in May 2020. Rights have been sold in eight translation markets so far: China (Shanghai Elegant People), Croatia (Fraktura), France (Editions Rivages), Hungary (Helikon), Italy (Guanda), Serbia (Carobna Knjiga), Sweden (Natur Och Kultur) and Turkey (Sia Kitap). A film deal is under negotiation with a major producer.

1878: The Lyceum Theatre, London. Three extraordinary people begin their life together, a life that will be full of drama, transformation, passionate and painful devotion to art and to one another. Henry Irving, the Chief, is the volcanic leading man and impresario; Ellen Terry is the most lauded and desired actress of her generation, outspoken and generous of heart; and ever following along behind them in the shadows is the unremarkable theatre manager, Bram Stoker.

Fresh from life in Dublin as a clerk, Bram may seem the least colourful of the trio but he is wrestling with dark demons in a new city, in a new marriage, and with his own literary aspirations. As he walks the London streets at night, streets haunted by the Ripper and the gossip which swirls around his friend Oscar Wilde, he finds new inspiration. But the Chief is determined that nothing will get in the way of his manager’s devotion to the Lyceum and to himself. And both men are enchanted by the beauty and boldness of the elusive Ellen.

SHADOWPLAY explores the complexities of love that stands dangerously outside social convention, the restlessness of creativity, and the experiences that led to Dracula, the most iconic supernatural tale of all time.

And just in time for Halloween, here’s a shortened version of Joseph O’Connor’s introduction to the new Vintage edition of Bram Stoker’s classic:

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/joseph-o-connor-how-dracula-left-its-mark-on-the-world-1.4057939

Photo credit: Vintage Books

Vintage have also just released beautiful new editions of O’Connor’s historical novels GHOST LIGHT (a haunting novel of love and memory, set in the Irish theatre world), STAR OF THE SEA (his ground-breaking bestseller about the Irish Famine) and REDEMPTION FALLS (another masterpiece which continues the story of some of the characters on board The Star of the Sea, and shines light on the role of the Irish on both sides of the Civil War).

See more on these, including book club guide here:

http://www.josephoconnorauthor.com/for-book-clubs-star-of-the-sea.html

http://www.josephoconnorauthor.com/for-book-clubs.html

http://www.josephoconnorauthor.com/novel-star-of-the-sea.html

Praise for Joseph O’Connor and SHADOWPLAY:
‘There are few living writers who can take us back in time so assuredly, with such sensual density, through such gorgeous sentences. Joseph O’Connor is a wonder, and SHADOWPLAY is a triumph.’ – Peter Carey

‘As much as this is a hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love, it is also, movingly – at times, agonisingly – a story of transience, loss and true loyalty.’ – Sadie Jones, The Guardian

‘Joseph O’Connor is a very great artist and storyteller. The quotient of enjoyment in his extraordinary new novel is stupendous.’ – Sebastian Barry

‘Wonderful. The writing is beautiful.’ – Derek Jacobi

‘A hugely entertaining and atmospheric novel, one can almost smell the greasepaint.’ – Deborah Moggach

‘Seriously fascinating’ – Colm Tóibín, The Observer

‘A virtuoso act of literary ventriloquism. SHADOWPLAY is funny, smart, tender, wise and written with inch-perfect precision.’ – Colum McCann

‘A great writer performing Olympian literary storytelling.’ — Bob Geldof

 About the Author
Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. His books include nine novels: COWBOYS AND INDIANS (Whitbread Prize shortlist), DESPERADOES, THE SALESMAN, INISHOWEN, STAR OF THE SEA (American Library Association Award, Irish Post Award for Fiction, France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, Prix Madeleine Zepter for European novel of the year), REDEMPTION FALLS, GHOST LIGHT (Dublin One City One Book Novel 2011), THE THRILL OF IT ALL and SHADOWPLAY. His work has been published in forty languages. He received the 2012 Irish PEN Award for outstanding achievement in literature and in 2014 he was appointed Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.

Visit Joseph O’Connor’s website

Kaite O'Reilly at the Singapore Writers Festival 2019

The best of luck to Kaite O’Reilly for her spotlights at Singapore’s writers festival, coming up in early November. Details of her involvement are to the left, and in addition there will be a run of Kaite’s play LIE WITH ME presented by the Intercultural Theatre Institute from the 7th-9th November.

Get your tickets to Kaite’s lecture-performance THE ‘D’ MONOLOGUES here

Get tickets to Kaite’s workshop YOU SAY INCLUSIVE I SAY SUBVERSIVE here

Get tickets to LIE WITH ME here

DEAD AT FIRST SIGHT BY PETER JAMES HITS NUMBER 1 ON THE PAPERBACK BESTSELLER CHARTS

Peter James’ fifteenth Detective Superintendent Roy Grace novel, DEAD AT FIRST SIGHT has shot straight to the Number 1 spot in the Sunday Times paperback bestseller chart with record sales after only three days on sale, replicating the novel’s chart-topping success in hardback earlier this year. DEAD AT FIRST SIGHT’s paperback success gives James his fifteenth Number 1 on the British charts.

DEAD AT FIRST SIGHT is an eye-opening page-turner about the growing crime of romance fraud. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace exposes the dark side of the internet when he is called to investigate the suspected suicide of a woman that is clearly not what it seems. A handsome Brighton motivational speaker soon comes forward: he’s discovered his identity is being used to scam women online. The first he knew of it was a phone call from one of them, out of the blue, saying, ‘You don’t know me, but I thought I knew you’. That woman is now dead…. Roy Grace realises he is looking at the tip of an iceberg of a global empire built on clever, cruel internet scams and the murder of anyone who threatens to expose them.

Peter James’ Roy Grace series has been translated into thirty-seven languages with worldwide sales of over twenty million copies. In Germany, NEED YOU DEAD (DU STIRBST FÜR MICH), just published by Fischer, is going into the Der Spiegel paperback bestseller lists at Number 19. 

Earlier this month THE SECRET OF COLD HILL, the ghostly follow-up to THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL, was at Number 6 in the UK hardback charts and the paperback of ABSOLUTE PROOF was a Summer blockbuster on the Richard and Judy list. Next year readers can look forward to the sixteenth Roy Grace in the Summer and an exciting Autumn standalone, both from Pan Macmillan. In the US Canelo have also recently released ABSOLUTE PROOF, PERFECT PEOPLE, THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL and THE SECRET OF COLD HILL in ebook.

Praise for Peter James:

‘Sinister and riveting… Peter James is one of the best British crime writers, and therefore one of the best in the world.’ — Lee Child

‘Peter James, Britain’s closest equivalent to Stephen King’ — Sunday Times

'Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business.' — Karin Slaughter

‘In my thirty-four years of policing, never have I come across a writer who so accurately depicts “The Job “’ —Detective Investigator Pat Lanigan, Office of the District Attorney, NYPD

About the Author:

Peter James is an international bestselling crime and thriller writer. In 2015 WHSmith customers voted him the Greatest Crime Author of All Time and in 2016 he was awarded the coveted CWA Diamond Dagger, a lifetime achievement award for sustained excellence. In 2018 he received a Specsavers Honorary Platinum Bestseller Award.

Successful nationwide tours of the stage plays of THE PERFECT MURDER (2014), DEAD SIMPLE (2015), NOT DEAD ENOUGH (2017) and THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL (2019) have played to packed theatres in dozens of British cities, and garnered magnificent reviews.

Visit Peter’s website

Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter

Kerry Hudson’s LOWBORN shortlisted for The Saltire Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award

Kerry Hudson’s  LOWBORN  (Chatto & Windus, May 2019) has been shortlisted for the Saltire Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award. One of Scotland’s most prestigious book awards, the Saltire Literary Award is dedicated to promoting literature from and about Scotland. The winner of each of six categories will  be considered for the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award, which is accompanied by a £6,000 cash prize, supported by Creative Scotland. 

LOWBORN is a powerful exploration of poverty in today’s Britain. As a child, Kerry was always on the move with her single mother, attending nine primary schools and five secondaries, living in B&Bs and council flats. The poverty she grew up in was all-encompassing, grinding and often dehumanising. In LOWBORN, she revisits the towns she grew up in to discover what being poor really means in Britain today and whether anything has changed.

LOWBORN has also been shortlisted for the Books are My Bag Breakthrough Author Award 2019, and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2019 and the Portico Prize 2019. It was chosen as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and Book of the Month in the Bookseller.

Her publisher Becky Hardie says: ‘Publishing LOWBORN has been such a proud experience for the whole of Vintage. Kerry has a powerful, important and often difficult story to tell, and she’s done so with superlative compassion and insight, both personal and political. We couldn’t be happier to see this hugely well-deserved shortlisting.’

LOWBORN will be published in paperback by Chatto & Windus in May 2020.

Praise for LOWBORN:

‘One of the most important books of the year’ —The Guardian

'Powerful and moving... An emotional and important read'— iNews

'Personal and captivating memoir from the prize-winning novelist’— The List

About the Author:

Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Growing up in a succession of council estates, B&Bs and caravan parks provided her with a keen eye for idiosyncratic behaviour, material for life, and a love of travel.

Her first novel, TONY HOGAN BOUGHT ME AN ICE-CREAM FLOAT BEFORE HE STOLE MY MA, was published by Chatto & Windus in July 2012. It was shortlisted for eight literary prizes, including the Guardian First Book Award and Green Carnation Prize, and won the Scottish First Book of the Year. Kerry's second novel, THIRST, was developed with support from the National Lottery through an Arts Council England grant, and published by Chatto & Windus in July 2014 before being shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize and the European Strega Prize. It was also the winner of the prestigious French literary prize, Prix Femina Etranger 2015, going on to become a bestseller in France. It was also shortlisted for the European Strega prize in Italy.

Visit Kerry’s website.

Follow Kerry on Twitter.

Vote for Kerry in the Books are my Bag Breakthrough Author Award