The author of Original Sins, an account of addiction and shame, on his book’s impact on his evangelical parents, reading the Patrick Melrose series while waiting for drug dealers, and how looking middle class saved him from arrestMatt Rowland Hill, 38, is the author of Original Sins, about growing up as the son of a baptist minister before falling into a decade-long addiction to heroin while studying at Oxford. Out in paperback, it was longlisted for last year’s Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction while being praised by Geoff Dyer for its “novelistic virtues of vivid scene-making, fully realised characterisation and psychological subtlety”. Hill and I sat in a park near his home in east London.I might have read this as a novel had it not been subtitled “a memoir”.The subtitle wasn’t my choice: I was open to it being published as fiction if my publisher had wanted that. I approached it like a novel, thinking about point of view and how I’d produce moments of irony and humour, which maybe liberated me to write with an emotional distance that paradoxically allowed me to be more honest. Nothing is fabricated. I did go to psychiatric units. I was a heroin addict for all that time. I used my imagination to make vivid the bits of dialogue or details about what we were wearing, although it’s surprising how detailed your recollections are once you dig in; what my father told my mother on that car ride to Guernsey – “If you died tonight, I’d dance on your grave” – was scored into... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-29 17:00:41 UTC ]
News tagged with:
#east london
#father told
#observer order
#delivery charges
Surfing memoir Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by New Yorker journalist William Finnegan (Corsair) has scooped the 28th William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award's Graham Sharpe on the process of choosing a winner and the history of the prize. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-11-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#graham sharpe
From tinting their pages yellow to redesigning fonts, publisher Barrington Stoke is leading the way in dyslexia-friendly books. They and their authors – including Meg Rosoff and Anthony McGowan – explain the practicalitiesMainstream understanding of dyslexia has come a long way from the days... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-10-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#barrington stoke
#important factors
An autobiography by "one of football's most controversial figures", Joey Barton, has been longlisted for the 2016 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#controversial figures
#joey barton
As Mother Teresa’s September 4 elevation to sainthood approaches, publishers celebrate the Nobel Prize-winning nun with books by and about her. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-06-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#mother teresa
Author Sheldon Blau has filed a class action suit alleging that the publisher is paying improper royalty rates on digital sales. But S&S says they have never published a digital edition of Blau's title. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#digital sales
#digital edition
In Norwegian folklore, a Nix is a spirit of the water, usually depicted as a horrible ogre, but sometimes as a beautiful white horse. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#nathan hill
Journalist, who was cleared of wrongdoing in relation to leaks from Sandhurst, has a deal with Harper CollinsThe Sun’s royal editor, Duncan Larcombe, is to leave the paper more than a year after an Old Bailey trial that saw him cleared of any wrongdoing in relation to tips about Princes William... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-04-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#prince harry
#harper collins
Civil-rights activist who made headlines last year after her white heritage was exposed says the book will be about people ‘caught between boundary lines of race or culture or ethnicity’Rachel Dolezal, the civil-rights activist who was accused of misrepresenting herself as black last year, has... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#made headlines
#larger issue
Nadiya Hussain, the winner of last year’s “The Great British Bake Off”, is writing a children’s book of stories and recipes, which is due to hit shops in September. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-01-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#write children
#nadiya hussain
Rabia Chaudry, the friend and advocate for Adnan Syed who brought his story to the attention of public radio's Sarah Koenig, is writing a book about his case. Syed, who was convicted of the 1999 murder of Woodlawn High School senior Hae Min Lee, his former girlfriend, has been imprisoned in... Continue reading at Baltimore Sun
[ Baltimore Sun | 2015-11-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#adnan syed
#rabia chaudry
#public radio
Religion publishers are taking a swipe at both age-old parenting myths and the anxieties of new motherhood with four titles releasing this season. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#faith-based books
#religion publishers
A former US Marine wins the biennial Warwick Prize for Writing for his book of short stories dealing with American experiences of the Iraq War. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2015-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#iraq war
Past winners of the The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writers of the Year Award share their writing tips and their favourite books written by writers aged 35 and under. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-11-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#sarah waters
#adam foulds
#andrew cowan
#favourite books
#young writers
#past winners
#writing tips
David Lagercrantz has been contracted to write two more novels in the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium series. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#david lagercrantz
#millennium series
An Oscar nominee at age 9, Quvenzhane Wallis is now getting an early start on a writing career. Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2015-10-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#write children
#early start
#writing career
After two years as publisher at Humanix Books, Anthony Ziccardi is taking over as publisher of Post Hill Press and its pop culture imprint Permuted Press. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#humanix books
Lately, lots of traditional book authors have been writing comic books. What author do you wish would write a comic? Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-09-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#pw asks
Sarah Jakes, the daughter of The Potter’s Church founder T.D. Jakes who became pregnant at age 13, pairs the responsibilities of modern motherhood with teachings from the Mary, the mother of Jesus, in her new book "Dear Mary." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-09-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#sarah jakes
#book inspired
Canongate has acquired a children’s book by Matt Haig about the early life of Father Christmas. Set in 18th-century Finland, A Boy Called Christmas is about elves, reindeer, a kidnapping, and an 11-year-old boy called Nikolas who isn't afraid to believe in magic. It will be illustrated... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#christmas book
#matt haig
#early life
#father christmas
#chris mould