By Claire Buss, Deputy Editor, Write On!
At Write On! and Pen to Print, we want to help connect authors and readers, playwrights and audiences, so we’ve created a Spotlight page on the last Saturday of the month, showcasing some of the exciting new reads and plays available. The curated list is based on books and plays that you send us, so if you’re an author or a playwright and you’d like your book or play in the spotlight, reach out to us at pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk. Whether you’re an indie author, with a small press or mainstream publisher, established or brand new playwright, we’d love to hear from you and shine a light on your new work.
Write On! offers other opportunities for writers as well. If you’d like us to feature an extract from your book or a short story, please send the extract, book cover and blurb to pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk with the subject: Write On! Showcase (ensuring you have your publisher’s permission, of course).
Pen to Print are also looking for short videos from people reading a passage from their favourite book, or authors reading extracts from their own books. These videos will be featured on the Pen to Print YouTube channel and across our social media. Please send in your videos or links to pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk with the subject: Video Stories.
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The Creative Penn Podcast by Joanna Penn
Podcast episodes are posted every Monday and include interviews, inspiration and information on writing and creativity, publishing options, book marketing and creative entrepreneurship.
Stats from October 2022 [Blubrry] — Over 7.6 million podcast downloads across 228 countries (60% USA, 12% UK, 5% Australia, 5% Canada, 18% Rest of the World).
The Creative Penn Podcast is in the top one per cent of podcasts with over 10,000 downloads in the first seven days of publishing, and 15-25,000 downloads per episode.
All the backlist episodes are listed below. You can subscribe on your favorite podcast app including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Android, Stitcher, YouTube, or RSS.
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You are inside.
With your husband and baby. Your life warm and calm and untroubled.
I am outside.
Alone. Looking in. Watching you.
You have all I ever wanted.
Now it’s time for you to share.
If it’s true – someone dies.
Visiting a prison inmate as a favour to a distant relative, Kathy has an unexpected encounter and forms a new friendship. When a disturbing rumour prompts them to embark on a mission to prevent a tragedy, they find themselves following a frustrating path: one involving the prison authorities, the police and ruthless and illegal measures being taken in the City of London. Though events are regularly punctuated with tea and cake, the two new friends find pursuing matters more complicated than they thought, as their resolve is heightened by the repeating question: “What if it were true?” Seeking to answer this against the clock brings many consequence, exposing them to more danger than they ever imagined.
Available to buy here
Online hate becomes real.
When a renegade British officer steals plans for a high-tech weapon that could plunge whole cities into darkness, elite MI6 hacker Brigitte Sharp is sent to get them back. But her mission goes badly wrong.
Meanwhile, a ‘deepfake’ video of a senior US politician calling for race war in Europe sends a flood of Americans to join neofascist militias on the continent. The Russians nurse a ruthless grudge against a fugitive whistleblower. In the wings, the Chinese flex their muscles. Everything seems connected…but how?
In her toughest challenge yet, Brigitte ventures undercover into the heart of the mysterious Patrios network. Her task? To make sense of the growing chaos before darkness and bloodshed engulf Europe. If a powerful enemy doesn’t get her first…
Available to buy here
Connect with Antony Johnston
Early scientists Harry Hunt and Robert Hooke of the Royal Society stumble on a plot to kill the Queen of England…
London, 1679. A year has passed since the sensational attempt to murder King Charles II, but London is still a viper’s nest of rumored Catholic conspiracies, and of plots against them in turn. When Harry Hunt — estranged from his mentor Robert Hooke — is summoned to the remote and windswept marshes of Norfolk, he is at first relieved to get away from the place.
But in Norfolk, he finds that some Royal workers shoring up a riverbank have made a grim discovery: the skeleton of a dwarf. Harry is able to confirm that the skeleton is that of Captain Jeffrey Hudson, a prominent member of the court once famously given to the Queen in a pie. Except no one knew Hudson was dead, because another man had been impersonating him.
The hunt for the impersonator, clearly working as a spy, will take Harry to Paris, another city bedeviled by conspiracies and intrigues, and back, with encounters along the way with a flying man and a cross-dressing swordswoman, and to the uncovering of a plot to kill the Queen and all the Catholic members of her court. But where and when?
Available to buy here
Connect with Robert J Lloyd
In his first short story collection, which spans 40 years of work and features many never-before-published pieces, international bestselling author and legendary creator of From Hell, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and other modern classics, Alan Moore presents nine stories full of wonder and strangeness, each taking us deeper into the fantastical underside of reality.
In A Hypothetical Lizard, two concubines in a brothel for fantastical specialists fall in love, with tragic ramifications. In Not Even Legend, a paranormal study group is infiltrated by one of the otherworldly beings they seek to investigate. In Illuminations, a nostalgic older man decides to visit a seaside resort from his youth and finds the past all too close at hand. And in the monumental novella What We Can Know About Thunderman, which charts the surreal and Kafkaesque history of the comics industry over the last 75 years through several sometimes-naive and sometimes-maniacal people rising and falling on its career ladders, Moore reveals the dark, beating heart of the superhero business.
From ghosts and otherworldly creatures to theoretical Boltzmann brains fashioning the universe at the big bang, Illuminations is exactly that: a series of bright, startling tales from a contemporary legend, revealing the full power of imagination and magic.
Available to buy here
In ten chilling tales, master storyteller Stewart Ross explores the dark web of horror wrapped around the everyday technology we take for granted – at our peril.
Given the popularity of similarly macabre displays in other attractions around the country, it should come as no surprise that Ringsholt Hall’s ‘Chamber Of Horror’ was a tremendous success. Lady Julia estimated a thousand people a day passed through it in the first week. In the second, the number doubled and a booking system had to be introduced.
Then, in the middle of the third week, came the terrible tragedy, and the attraction was closed.
Early on the Wednesday morning, the naked body of Theresa Accrington-Smith was discovered in a pool of blood on the Chamber floor…
Available to buy here
Connect with Stewart Ross
Sometimes it was as though the 40 years of friendship between them was just a lesson in the unknowability of other people…
Maryam and Zahra.
In 1988 Karachi, two 14-year-old girls are a decade into their friendship, sharing in-jokes, secrets and a love for George Michael. As Pakistan’s dictatorship falls and a woman comes to power, the world suddenly seems full of possibilities. Elated by the change in the air, they make a snap decision at a party. That night, everything goes wrong, and the two girls are powerless to change the outcome.
Zahra and Maryam.
In present-day London, two influential women remain bound together by loyalties, disloyalties, and the memory of that night, which echoes through the present in unexpected ways. Now both have power, and both have very different ideas of how to wield it… Their friendship has always felt unbreakable; can it be undone by one decision?
Available to buy here
Connect with Kamila Shamsie
A tragic accident? Or is there a poisoner on the loose?
In the sixth of Abi Silver’s nail-biting games of courtroom cat-and-mouse, Judith Burton and Constance Lamb defend a caterer accused of killing a food magnate by negligence. Is something darker afoot?
When food magnate Brett Ingram collapses and dies at a public event, his seafood allergy is blamed and the caterer, Nick Demetriou, charged with manslaughter.
Nick hires legal duo Judith Burton and Constance Lamb to defend him. They scrutinise the colourful panellists at the event: a food blogger, a beef farmer, a food scientist, a TV chef and a radio host, all of whom seem to be holding something back.
There’s something fishy about the allergy story. Did one of the speakers have a hand in the businessman’s death? And what of the nasty incidents that keep befalling them? Should the net be cast wider to include opponents of Brett’s mysterious Ambrosia initiative?
Judith and Constance must now find the truth among a smorgasbord of lies and deception.
Available to buy here
Connect with Abi Silver
This debut memoir is both a captivating travelogue and an introspective look at what it takes to navigate the unfamiliar and find your way back home.
Meghan J. Ward was 21 years old when she journeyed across the country for a summer job in the Canadian Rockies. As an inexperienced hiker from the suburbs of the nation’s capital, she knew she was in for an adventure. But what she didn’t know was that her move to the mountains would result in a 90-degree-turn towards a life she never expected.
In the Rockies, Meghan fell in love with the wilderness, the high elevations, and a man whose way of life expanded her horizons. As the summer drew to a close, she took her first of many courageous steps off the beaten path to create the life of her choosing — one that brought her a sense of purpose and meaning, and a new set of challenges.
In Lights To Guide Me Home Meghan takes us on a trip around the world, while chronicling her transitions through some of life’s major milestones. From Costa Rica to Nepal, Rapa Nui to Malta, Meghan explores what it means to carve out her own identity amidst family expectations, her responsibilities as a parent to young children, and her marriage to an ambitious travel and landscape photographer. Whom will she discover beneath all these entanglements?
Available to buy here
Connect with Meghan J Ward
In an age where disease is on the rise and the reality of viral pandemics in our lifetime exists, Healthy Black Life: A Cultural Guide To Better Health addresses health and wellness within the black community.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK national press reported the health of black and asian people in Britain as being severely impacted. Although there are various social, economic and occupational reasons for this, lifestyle and diet are major contributors. Author Paula Watson-Gardner shares life experiences, attempting to address current health concerns and identify how black culture, including history, lifestyle and traditions, may contribute to our poor health.
Through the eyes of our culture, this book offers simple steps on how to improve your health and live life to the full, including:
- A cultural food guide
- Tips to prevent and reduce disease
- Information on how mindset and emotions affect our choices
- Health and fitness advice (including home exercises)
Healthy Black Life: A Cultural Guide To Better Health is a must-read for the black community worldwide, but will also benefit people from all backgrounds, by laying a foundation for those who want to build a more positive health journey.
Remember, if you’re an author and you’d like to see your book in our Saturday Spotlight, email: pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk and send us the details of your new novel.
Further Links
For details of Penguin RandomHouse new releases, visit their website here.
For details of Hachette new releases, visit their website here.
For details of HarperCollins new releases, visit their website here.
For details of PanMacmillan new releases, visit their website here.
For details of Simon & Schuster new releases, visit their website here.
Disclaimer: Amazon links are given for ease but please remember there are a number of other online retailers operating, including hive (which helps to support independent book shops), Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play and Nook as well as online stores for bookstores such as Waterstones, Barnes & Noble and WHSmiths.
Issue 14 of Write On! Magazine is out now. See it here.
