She's getting a new look 💚 please say hello to the paperback cover for These Mortal Bodies! 🎓🕯️🥀
I'm so in love with this cover and everything it captures about my debut novel; the power of water, the murkiness of sisterhood, the gothic architecture, the woods that surround the characters, the points of light in times of darkness (and yes the importance of white dresses in certain rituals ...).
Thank you so much to the S and S team and India the cover designer especially for giving These Mortal Bodies such a beautiful new look. The paperback is available to preorder now.
#bookstagram
Coming 17/7/25 - These Mortal Bodies
Beyond excited to share the cover for These Mortal Bodies and that pre orders are *opennn* (link in my bio)!
I am incredibly grateful for the fabulous art team at @simonschusteruk who worked on this with the guidance of my endlessly talented and patient editor Judith Long. I feel it captures the vibe of the book so perfectly and of course I love the pink (can I have a lifelong run of every book cover being pink? I will certainly try).
Described as The Crucible meets The Secret History, These Mortal Bodies explores so many of the things I can never stop writing about - feminine obsession, sleepovers, friendships that are so close you feel like you're becoming one, the power of the sea, the headiness of university, all women spaces, rich people behaving badly, woods that seem to come alive at night and ofc witches.
If this sounds up your street and you have the ability to preorder (either in ebook or hardback) it honestly helps debut authors like me so, so much and really makes a difference to how well a book does and an author's career overall.
Can't wait to be able to share Ivy, Martha and Prim's adventures with you all ♥️ and of course a huge thank you to @portyliterary without whom this book wouldn't exist!
#preorder #debutnovelist #darkacademia #witchlit
🎉 *some news* klaxon 🎉
Some very exciting news that I have been desperateeee to share! My debut novel is going to be published by @simonandschuster UK in 2025!
I started working on this novel in February 2020 and so much has happened on both a personal and societal level since then. I am beyond grateful that this novel has provided me with a point of light and creativity throughout dark times, and that this twisty, witchy tale will be with readers before I know it!! (Also slightly terrified by that too ofc lol)
I am beyond lucky in the support I have received from friends, family, the writing community and my incredibly kind and excellent agent @portyliterary and am absolutely delighted to have found such an talented and sensitive editor in Judith.
I can't wait for you to meet Ivy ❤️❤️!
#debutnovel #debuts2025
One of my fave events ever yesterday at @paisleybookfest (but I took hardly any pics)! @tomnewlands_ and I facilitated a neurodivergent writers' salon in the most lovely, comfy space with a beautiful group of people. We had a chat about our books, great questions and a fantastic open mic with poetry, short stories and monologues.
Thanks so much to the readers and attendees and to the festival staff and volunteers for creating such an affirming space (it's going to be hard to go back to sitting on folding chairs at book events 😭). And to @booknook_sarah for running the fab festival bookshop, though sadly only got a blurry pic of our books!
Tom and I loved doing this event so much and got such great feedback so if you're a lit festival (or bookshop!) and want us to run something similar do say hi 😎.
Set in a fictional university town in England with some parts set in coastal Scotland, nature is very much a character in These Mortal Bodies 🌳. When I wrote the novel, the places that I've lived in, have lived in me, inspired me in different ways, coming to life, melding together, trees and woods and water asserting their own characters. Although it's fiction, there's so much nature writing in These Mortal Bodies and it's a story about friendship, not only with other humans, but with place.
And if that's your kind of boon TMB is out now in paperback, audiobook and ebook 💚.
Thank you to @elspethwrites for leading a wonderful workshop on writing friendship in the bookshop last night, and to everyone who joined us! ✍️ Nothing makes me happier than seeing people connecting and being inspired around the table in the bookshop, and it was so lovely to hear the giggles and chatter that filled our space last night. Thank you, Elspeth - and for signing more copies of These Mortal Bodies, too!
Thank you so much to @lucyrosecreates and @hestermusson for these gorgeous quotes about These Mortal Bodies 💚. What a joy to have writers you admire read and *get* your work.
If you enjoy slow-burn, gothic depictions of friendship, obsession and late girlhood with a dash of glitz and glamour, then These Mortal Bodies is out now with @simonschusteruk in paperback, audiobook and ebook 🥀📚.
A special week in a special place with a special group ✨. Just over six years after starting writing These Mortal Bodies at an @arvon__ retreat and knowing how special writing retreats can be, I was utterly delighted to be asked to co-tutor a writing week for neurodivergent writers with the lovely @katefoxwriter at @moniackmhor .
From the very moment I arrived at Moniack, I felt so well looked after and welcomed. The staff are so amazing and dedicated and the writers themselves were incredibly generous, kind, supportive and talented. We spoke about giving ourselves permission, alternative shapes of stories, how trad writing advice doesn't work for so many of us and what creating affirming spaces looks like and we heard a fantastic reading from @joanne.limburg .
I'm including all my photos because it's such a lovely place I couldn't help but share. And taking a moment to be proud (!!!) and realise how far I've come since that Arvon retreat and how I'm more determined than ever to support other writers and accessibility in the literary world.
A lovely evening in @wstonesdundee last night with @callistolodwick talking about our debut, genre-bending dark academia novels 🥀.
We chatted about so many of the connections between our books:
🌊 the power of water
✍🏻 unreliable narrators
📚 obssession and friendship
⏳dual timelines
🖊️the fun in writing morally grey, often unlikeable MCs
We left behind some signed copies in Waterstones if you want to grab one and support local debut authors. I also got to stay right next to the water and catch this beautiful dying light which felt very fitting!
As a debut novelist, even though I thought I had a realistic idea I *still* wasn't quite prepared for how much author stuff there was on top of the writing stuff. I'm fortunate in that I love speaking in public and doing events but I don't think I realised quite how different the roles of writer and author can be (though of course there's a relationship there). And how many emails there would be!!!
This comment from a lovely reader last year has really stuck with me so I thought I'd share it in the same generous spirit that this person did. Would love to hear other writers' thoughts about whether this rings true!
#writing #author #authorlife #publishing
Querying can be v tough and the tips I shared before seemed to help so I'm sharing some more thoughts I learned along my journey! (I got my first agent from querying and my second and current agent because they'd previously read my work in a competition). The last one is probably the biggest, overriding one though ♥️. And if you have any Q's as a querying writer please feel free to ask in the comments!
#amquerying #querying #writing #writingtips #bookstagram
Some thoughts as a published poet and a published novelist! I hope some of these are helpful in terms of editing but for me the most important one is the last one and always will be because if you can't follow your heart, creatively, then where can you?
Would love to hear other writers' thoughts! 📚
(And if you want to read some of my poetry you can grab a copy of my pamphlet Too Hot to Sleep from @writtenoffpublishing !)
#poetrycommunity #poetry #editing #ficfion #bookstagram
