Novelist Kate Atkinson: ‘I do feel a need to prove myself’

As her latest Jackson Brodie thriller comes out, the award-winning author discusses cosy crime, sniffy critics, and how she investigated her own family’s secretsKate Atkinson has an idea for a fun side-hustle: at some point in the future, when she’s done with the second world war, and with her jaded private eye, Jackson Brodie, she’ll bring to life the creative projects that have hitherto existed only as facets of her characters’ lives. She’ll take the fortune teller Madame Astarti from her third novel, Emotionally Weird, and put her at the centre of her own series of mysteries; she’ll conjure up a script for Green Acres, the rural soap opera that features in her two short-story collections, 2002’s Not the End of the World and last year’s Normal Rules Don’t Apply; she’ll craft episodes of the TV police procedural Collier, in which Brodie’s one-time girlfriend Julia played a pathologist. And finally, she’ll flesh out the breathtakingly hammy murder mystery that a cast of clapped-out actors perform at Burton Makepeace, the stately home that is the setting for her new Jackson Brodie novel, Death at the Sign of the Rook.Writing these scenes – teeming with aristocrats, actors, Russian countesses, clergymen and a “fastidious little Swiss detective” – were Atkinson’s treat, she tells me, as she constructed the novel during lockdown. “I would have done so much more of that,” she explains, as we sit sipping coffee in a studiedly antiquated hotel near her home in Edinburgh. “But I... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2024-08-10 08:00:37 UTC ]

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Cynthia Leitich Smith Named Winner of the 2021 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature

News and Events Photo by Christopher T. Assaf World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, today announced Cynthia Leitich Smith as the winner of the 2021 NSK Neustadt Prize... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-10-20 23:56:14 UTC ]
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Vertebrate scoops Mort's mountain dog adventures

Vertebrate Publishing has scooped Never Leave the Dog Behind, a celebration of mountain adventures with four-legged friends by award-winning author Helen Mort. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-14 03:06:11 UTC ]
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Story of Churchill's daughter-in-law to Virago

Virago has acquired a new book from Sonia Purnell, telling the "explosive" story of Pamela Harriman, Winston and Clementine Churchill’s beloved daughter-in-law, and "secret weapon" during the Second World War. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-22 04:52:06 UTC ]
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Faber scores middle-grade novel inspired by 'female football legends'

Faber is publishing Lou Kuenzler's latest middle-grade novel, inspired by the stories of the female footballers who rose to fame following the First World War.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-07 17:42:25 UTC ]
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Here’s Katherine Anne Porter describing how she resisted death during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.

“I resisted. I would not die. I could not.” Katherine Anne Porter—the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author of Ship of Fools and Pale Horse, Pale Rider—was born 130 years ago today in Indian Creek, Texas, and should, by all expectations, have died less than twenty-eight years... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-05-15 18:30:52 UTC ]
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Rekindled: Amy Meyerson in Conversation with Vanessa Hua

On this episode of Rekindled, award-winning author Vanessa Hua talks with Amy Meyerson about her new book, The Imperfects, a story about a priceless inheritance that leads one family on a life-altering pursuit of the truth. Meyerson talks about the process of researching for her new novel, using... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-05-06 20:00:35 UTC ]
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Nosy Crow acquires 10 children’s books by Pamela Butchart

Independent publisher Nosy Crow has acquired 10 new titles from the award-winning author and schoolteacher Pamela Butchart. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-17 11:26:59 UTC ]
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Hold on to your Nebulas: Ken Liu’s short stories are coming to TV.

Ken Liu, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of more acclaimed SFF short stories than you can shake a futuristic stick at, will soon be bringing his expansive imagination to the small screen. As Publishers Marketplace announced earlier today, AMC has acquired the rights to the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-13 14:30:21 UTC ]
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James McBride’s ‘Deacon King Kong’ offers a rollicking examination of a Brooklyn community

The National Book Award-winning author follows an aging deacon whose mysterious actions set a sprawling plot in motion. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-03-09 15:07:32 UTC ]
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Stewart Foster strikes new two-book deal with S&S Children's

Simon & Schuster Children’s UK has acquired two middle-grade titles from Stewart Foster, the award-winning author of The Bubble Boy.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-05 14:43:09 UTC ]
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Mirror Books to publish 'remarkable' World War Two memoir

Mirror Books will publish new memoir about the only living sisters to have signed the Official Secrets Act during the Second World War.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-04 12:36:25 UTC ]
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10 shiny new books you should pick up this week.

Every week, the TBR pile grows a little bit more. It’s getting precarious. It’s taking up your whole nightstand. It’s threatening to crush you in your sleep. Well, what are you waiting for? Get cracking. What are you reading this week?   Colum McCann, Apeirogon (Random House) The latest novel... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-25 14:57:43 UTC ]
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A writer is holding Patrick deWitt’s website hostage—until he reads their manuscript.

The following post has been updated with a response from the website squatter. There are traditional ways to get a book published—pitches, queries, agents, enduring months and years of soul-crushing work and silence—and then there’s blackmail. A writer is currently squatting on Patrick deWitt’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-30 16:55:01 UTC ]
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Myers and SoA condemn pressure on authors to 'perform'

Award-winning author Benjamin Myers and the Society of Authors (SoA) have criticised the pressure on writers to become “personalities” rather than be judged on their work as literary events increase. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-09 07:55:03 UTC ]
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Viper snaps up Kate Simants' thriller

Serpent’s Tail's new crime imprint Viper will publish the second novel from former investigative undercover journalist and award-winning author Kate Simants. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-05 16:54:04 UTC ]
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Hutchinson snaps up Carys Bray's climate change novel

Hutchinson has signed the new novel from award-winning author Carys Bray about the impact of climate change on mental health. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-28 15:45:29 UTC ]
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Walker to publish Michael Rosen's family tale of the Second World War

Walker Books will publish Michael Rosen’s The Missing; The True Story of my Family in World War Two in January 2020. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-26 17:56:29 UTC ]
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Lessons in worldbuilding from N. K. Jemisin (plus a preview of her next book).

At the WIRED25 Festival in San Francisco last weekend, author N.K. Jemisin gave attendees a real treat: a two-hour crash course in imagining and building future worlds. Jemisin is the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, etc. Award-winning author of the Broken Earth series and the Inheritance Trilogy. (Literary... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2019-11-13 16:55:20 UTC ]
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Obituary: Ernest J. Gaines, Novelist of the Black South, Dies at 86

Ernest J. Gaines, award-winning author of the acclaimed novel 'The Autobiography of Jane Pittman,' and a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant recipient, died of a heart attack at his home in Oscar, La. He was 86. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-11-06 05:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins snaps up Gaynor's Second World War novel

HarperCollins has snapped up The Kingfisher Patrol, a new novel from Hazel Gaynor set in Japanese-occupied China during the Second World War. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-06 00:37:34 UTC ]
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