So sadly, summer’s over, and I’ve started working on Novel No. 2, which will keep me occupied for much of the autumn. But first, here’s the video of my TEDx London talk, which was a rousing finish to my book tour for Dark Chapter earlier this summer. I got a standing ovation!
In other news, the German edition of Dark Chapter recently came out — it’s been retitled Nein and given a fantastic new cover. Media coverage has been great. Here’s a full-page review in the Neue Zuercher Zeitung (Switzerland’s most prestigious newspaper, I’ve been told), and an interview with me in Jetzt, the youth-oriented magazine that is part of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. That makes eight editions of Dark Chapter so far (the Icelandic version is missing from the photo below):
A growing collection of foreign editions…
I recently had the honour of being a judge for the SI Leeds Literary Prize 2018, for which I won 2nd prize in 2016, for the unpublished manuscript of Dark Chapter. This time, I got to read the unpublished manuscripts of some very promising women of colour writers in the UK. Many of them will be excellent books one day, and it was truly a pleasure to work with my fellow judges Susheila Nasta, Kadija George, and Sharmaine Lovegrove. Here’s to more diversity in the arts, and all the talent that’s out there!
I have a few events coming up this autumn, in London, Scotland, and Ireland — notably I’m a speaker at the Safe World Summit 2018 in Dublin. And there is very exciting news coming in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!
So I really need to be updating this site more often, but if I thought last year was busy… the first quarter of 2018 sent me to Los Angeles (twice), San Francisco, Berlin, Cork, Seoul, and of course my home base of London.It’s been great to have the chance to talk about Dark Chapter, #MeToo and sexual violence in so many different places. I’ve just returned from an amazing (and intense) promotional tour in Seoul, where the Korean edition of Dark Chapter just launched. And next week, I’m headed to New York, where the US paperback edition will be published on April 17th.
The big news is that Dark Chapter has been nominated for the Edgar Awards for Best First Novel.These are the most prestigious mystery & crime writing awards in the US, and have been won in the past by Stephen King, Dennis Lehane, Gillian Flynn, Viet Thanh Nguyen, etc. So I completely wasn’t expecting this – in fact, I woke up one morning in January, and my Twitter timeline had exploded. Before the Edgar Awards Ceremony in New York, I’ll be participating at the Edgar Week Symposium featuring some of the country’s top crime writers — AND there will be a launch of the US paperback at the Mysterious Bookshop in Tribeca, on Saturday, April 21st. Feel free to come by!(After that, I’m at the Bay Area Book Festival April 28-29, so looking forward to being in San Francisco again.)
In the UK, Dark Chapter has also been long-listed for The Author’s Club Best First Novel Award, and I was particularly busy with public talks around International Women’s Day, speaking at the WoW Festival at the SouthBank Centre, the House of Lords in Parliament, and meeting HRH Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall among other activities. I also returned to Cork, Ireland where I studied as a Mitchell Scholar at UCC in 2000-2001 for an MA in English (Gender & Sexuality in Irish Writing).To give a talk with my former professors in the Dept of English there was very much like coming full circle!Here’s a feature The Irish Examiner ran on me, following my visit.
With Cliona O Gallchoir, Piaras Mac Einri & Pat Coughlan, my former profs from UCC!
Of all places I never expected to go, I was flown out to South Korea, which has been rocked recently by a wave of #MeToo allegations. My Korean publishers pulled out all the stops, launching Dark Chapter there with a full press conference, coverage in all major newspapers, and multiple TV interviews. (Try doing this all while jetlagged, with a translator!) I also gave a talk at Ewha Women’s University and a Sebasi lecture (the Korean version of TED).You can watch my Sebasi lecture (in English) below:
Along the way, I got to meet some of Korea’s leading feminist scholars, fellow survivors and advocates.It was a truly eye-opening experience for me — and all due to my incredible publishers at Hangilsa. (The only other foreign literary writers they publish are Karl Ove Knausgard, Elena Ferrante, and Rachel Cusk.Nice to be in that select circle!)
My Korean translator Byeol is herself a survivor & advocate, which means a lot to me
I mentioned Los Angeles, where I attended a pre-Oscar party for the Oscars Wilde Awards, run annually by the US-Ireland Alliance and hosted by… JJ Abrams at the Bad Robot headquarters. At one point in the party I turned around and saw JJ Abrams speaking to Ava DuVernay and I promptly freaked out. I’ve also been speaking to various film companies and producers about screen adaptation rights to Dark Chapter… if you’re interested in those, contact my agents at Pontas!
Needless to say, while this is all exciting, it’s also exhausting.I luckily squeezed in a weeklong vacation on Jeju Island in Korea, and later Coron in the Philippines.I’m leaving with this photo of me at Kayangan Lake, where I wish I still was… yes, the water really is that color!
Yes I can’t *quite* believe it, but there’s less than 4 weeks to go until my debut novel Dark Chapter is available in the UK and Ireland. The hardcover arrived last week….
In the meantime, 1000 Londoners launched their short film of me as part of their ‘Century: 10 Decades x 10 Women’ series.1000 Londoners are an award-winning project, showcasing short web films about, well, 1000 Londoners.It’s an honour to have been profiled by them, and especially to be their featured Londoner for the week of May 4-10.
On May 16th, I’ll be speaking at a pre-launch event for Dark Chapter, as part of UK Says No More Week, organised by Hestia to raise awareness about sexual and domestic violence.There will be 30 advance copies of my novel available to buy, so book your free spot here — space is very limited!
This follows a successful pre-launch event at Waterstones Piccadilly on April 30, where I’d been invited to read in the New Crime Writing slot as part of the Writers of the World Unite Festival.Many thanks to those who came and bought advance copies of Dark Chapter!There wasn’t a spare seat in the house, and the reaction was fantastic… and very encouraging for this somewhat nervous first-time author.You can watch a clip of me reading the prologue to Dark Chapter here:
Earlier in April, I was on a much-needed holiday in Spain where I got to wander around fantastic places like the Pyrenees and Cuenca on my own.But I’d also been invited to Barcelona to attend the 25th anniversary celebration of my literary agents, The Pontas Agency.It was truly magical to meet other Pontas authors who had all been flown in from around the world and were being represented by such a uniquely passionate group of agents.We got a fair amount of press coverage within the publishing industry, and I’m quoted in this article from Publishers Weekly.
Anyway, things just kicked into a higher gear in advance of Dark Chapter’s UK publication date, so watch this space for more news on events and media coverage….
New year, new cover for my novel.Here we go with the cover reveal for the North American edition of DARK CHAPTER:
Similar in feel to the UK edition (Legend Press), but with a bit more emphasis on the human element.I’m a fan of both.Hopefully, readers will like them, too! In the US and Canada, DARK CHAPTER will be out with Polis Books in September 2017.
BUT the UK/Irish edition will come before that — in fact, it’s out on June 1st!We’ve already been getting some really strong endorsements from other authors, thinkers, and activists who’ve gotten advance copies of the book.Most excitingly, DARK CHAPTER was included on Cathy Rentzenbrink’s list ‘Ten Smashing Debut Novels to Look Out For in 2017’ for Stylist Magazine in the UK. It’s up there along with George Sanders’ debut novel LINCOLN IN THE BARDO, BROOKLYN by Yaa Gyasi, and a number of other titles which have gone on to become bestsellers already.A screenshot of our listing is below (although they got the publication date wrong), and the full list is available here.
DARK CHAPTER was also included in another list of ‘Tremendous Books to Look Forward To in 2017’ on Bookwitty.There, it’s listed alongside the latest by Mohsin Hamid (THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST), Bernhard Schlink (THE READER), and Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen (THE SYMPATHIZER).So no pressure or anything…
Watch this space for more buzz about DARK CHAPTER as the year rolls on!
At long last, here is the cover reveal for the UK/Irish edition of my novel, DARK CHAPTER!
In earlier versions of the design, the woman’s hair was blonde, so there was a bit of a tussle to ensure she was depicted as a woman of color, but we got there in the end! I’m quite pleased with it: ominous, yet also somewhat redemptive in feel. Hopefully, it says intelligent literary suspense to you.
Legend Press will be publishing the novel in hardcover 1st June 2017 in the UK/Ireland, and I look forward to seeing what over cover designs will be like for the other countries.We’re just about to sign off on the final edit, so I’ll finally be putting to bed a novel I started writing three years ago.(In fact, during NaNoWriMo 2013.)
Off the back of the SI Leeds Literary Prize, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet US author Paul Beatty when he was in London for the Man Booker Prize Ceremony.He eventually WON the Booker Prize for his hilarious novel THE SELLOUT, four days after this photo was taken!Here he is at the Waterstones Piccadilly with me, SI Leeds shortlisted writer Stella Ahmadou, and the legendary Margaret Busby, who was the UK’s first black publisher back in the 1960s.So inspiring for an encouraging, down-to-earth, bold and incisive writer like him to have won the UK’s top literary prize.
I already had a fantastic time at the first SI Leeds Literary Prize event at the Rich Mix on September 19th, which was hosted by Sunny Singh. It was a pleasure meeting the other shortlisted authors, each of whom has a unique and valuable perspective in her writing — and I look forward to seeing them again at the upcoming events! Here’s all of us on stage at the Rich Mix event:
On stage looking a bit awkward at the Rich Mix…
I’m shortlisted for the unpublished manuscript of my upcoming novel Dark Chapter, which my agents will be representing at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Here’s their pre-Frankfurt newsletter. They’ve been wonderfully supportive of me for the past year, and we’re all looking forward to the novel’s publication in 2017 in multiple countries!
In other news, I’m continuing to meet with other activists and artists on the issue of sexual assault and consent, both in the UK and elsewhere. On September 16th, I attended the first-ever Being the Story event, which focused on storytelling to advance social justice and humanitarian causes. I was asked by the organizers sounddelivery to write a guest-blog on my own uses of storytelling to address sexual assault, and you can read it here.
YES – it’s finally, actually happening! I am absolutely beyond thrilled (and relieved) to announce my debut novel, Dark Chapter, will be published worldwide next year — in North America by Polis Books and in the UK/Ireland by Legend Press. Both are dynamic independent publishers, which have been going from strength to strength in recent years. So I am very pleased to be part of these teams on both sides of the Atlantic, and to work with them on finding innovative ways to connect with audiences. After all, one main reason I wrote this novel was to start a more public conversation about the many angles to sexual assault — and I’m glad to have two fantastic publishers make that possible in my home countries. My agents were thrilled to close these deals – here’s their announcement!
And here’s the Polis Books announcement. They call my novel ‘bold, riveting, and above all, human.’ I’m liking those words! I was very lucky to have these words of praise from New York Times-bestselling author Marti Leimbach:
Marti’s novel Age of Consent is out now, and the encouragement of other authors and advocates on this issue has been vital for me.
In Sweden, Norstedts (publisher of Stieg Larsson, Margaret Atwood, and Elena Ferrante, among others) have already signed up to publish Dark Chapter. So watch this space for news on publication dates and more publishers!
I’m very honored to have been shortlisted for the prestigious Asian Women of Achievement Awards in the Social and Humanitarian category, for my work on the issue of sexual assault and consent, including launching the Clear Lines Festival. The awards are meant ‘to celebrate the often unsung Asian heroines of British life’ so… hey, I appreciate that! Awards evening is May 12 at the London Hilton on Park Lane. Looking forward to it!
Speaking of Clear Lines, we’ve recently sent out our Spring 2016 newsletter, which you can read here. And on March 12, I had the opportunity to run an important discussion group on sexual assault and abuse at the Women of the World Festival (WOW) at the South Bank Centre, on behalf of Clear Lines. This followed the Sexual Assault and Abuse: Giving Testimony session, where I spoke on the panel, chaired by Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of the South Bank Centre. Overall, WOW was a fantastic weekend, full of inspiring talks and performances, addressing all sorts of issues related to achieving greater gender equality. Many thanks especially to the survivors, witnesses, and supporters who came shared, listened, and spoke out at our discussion group.
Happy 2016! This update is very overdue, but I haven’t had much spare time these past few months, ever since starting my PhD. But more on that later…
The first bit of exciting news is that my debut novel Dark Chapter has its first publication deal — it’ll be coming out in Sweden in Spring 2017 thanks to Norstedts, one of Sweden’s most prestigious publishing houses. They also publish Margaret Atwood, Elena Ferrante, Colm Tóibín, and they discovered Stieg Larsson, so it’s not bad company to be in! The deal was listed at the top of Publishers Weekly Hot International Book Properties in November. I’m looking forward to publishers making the book available in other countries… I hope you are, too!
Alongside my creative writing, I’ve begun my PhD at the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. I’ll be researching the impact of social media on the public dialogue about rape and sexual assault — a very topical subject, and obviously, one which I feel strongly about, given my own experience and exploration of the issue. You can watch a video and read an article on my research here:
At the end of October, I spoke at the Feminism in London Conference, as a nominee for the annual Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize. I didn’t win in the end, but it was an honor to be at the awards ceremony, both as an Individual Award nominee and as a representative of the Clear Lines Festival (nominated for the Group Award). To have the chance to meet the other shortlisted women — and hear about their collective efforts working against gender-based violence — was nothing short of inspiring.
It’s been a busy few months for me since the Clear Lines Festival… I’ve been doubly shortlisted for the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize, awarded annually to recognize women working against male violence. This year for the individual prize, they focused on women who use writing in their activism, so I’m quite humbled to be nominated alongside other, more prolific women who write regularly for The Guardian or have had entire books published. Clear Lines was also nominated for the group prize, along with three fantastic organizations: Million Women Rise, Sisters Uncut, and Rights of Women. Anyway, I’ll be speaking on Sunday afternoon, October 25th, at the Feminism in London Conference, and the winners will be announced at the closing event shortly afterward.
A recent newspaper feature on me
As for my own book, well, I FINALLY finished my novel, Dark Chapter — and I’ve signed with The Pontas Agency, a very nifty boutique agency based in Barcelona, who specialize in representing international authors writing on globally relevant themes. Click here to read their announcement about me joining the Pontas fold. It’s very exciting to work with them and to join their distinguished list of clientele.
Me and Anna-Soler Pont, the Pontas CEO, right after I signed with them
The Irish Times have recently run this feature article on me and my experiences leading up to writing the novel. It opens with the first paragraph of Dark Chapter… Hope you enjoy the read!
Not bad! No.1 in The Irish Times Life & Style section
