Bibliomaniac Event: Writing & Getting Published
Bibliomaniac Presents:
Unbound: Writing & Getting Published
March 7th 2018
8-10pm
Harpenden Arms, Harpenden
£10*
*including 1 free drink, raffle ticket & a goody bag!
Ever fancied writing a book? Already got some ideas but unsure what to do next? How does an idea on a scrap of paper become a physical paperback you can buy in the shop? And what exactly happens once your book is published?
Come along on the 7th March to find out answers to all of this and much, much more!
Join me as I quiz sports journalist Ian Ridley, whose first fiction book publishes this month, about his switch from non fiction to fiction and his choice to work with Unbound, a publishing company that brings the best elements of self publishing and traditional publishing together.
I'll also be joined by Jennie Ensor, Kerensa Jennings and Jessica Duchen - also all published by Unbound - who are back after their panel event last summer to share stories about their successes, second novels and all that they have learned since we last met!
So if you have any questions about writing - fiction or non fiction - and publishing, come along and chat with these four authors!
IAN RIDLEY
It’s the morning after the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. The city is relaxed as rarely before, delighted with itself at how spectacularly it has hosted the uplifting event.
The capital, however, will be rudely and brutally awoken from its self-congratulation by a shocking atrocity committed upon innocent Muslims at the London Central Mosque in Regent's Park.
How could it happen? Why did it happen? Is this a terrorist attack? Is it political? Or is it personal?
THE OUTER CIRCLE is concerned with the culture of modern Britain. It follows five characters caught up in this tragic event and the aftermath of anxiety and reprisal as the answers dramatically emerge.
The capital, however, will be rudely and brutally awoken from its self-congratulation by a shocking atrocity committed upon innocent Muslims at the London Central Mosque in Regent's Park.
How could it happen? Why did it happen? Is this a terrorist attack? Is it political? Or is it personal?
THE OUTER CIRCLE is concerned with the culture of modern Britain. It follows five characters caught up in this tragic event and the aftermath of anxiety and reprisal as the answers dramatically emerge.
IAN RIDLEY is the author of 12 sports books, including the No.1 best selling Addicted, with the former Arsenal and England captain Tony Adams, which was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. Three of his other books have also been nominated in the British Sports Book Awards.
Over a 40-year career, Ian has been a sports writer for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Observer and the Mail on Sunday, for whom he was Chief Football Writer. He was named Sports Journalist of the Year in the 2007 British Press Awards and has been nominated on two other occasions.
Ian has also written for television, including more than 20 episodes of the Sky One drama series Dream Team, and currently has a film script in development on the life story of the world champion boxer Darren Barker, based on the autobiography on which the two collaborated, A Dazzling Darkness.
The Outer Circle is Ian’s first novel.
KERENSA JENNINGS
A psychological thriller that explores whether evil is born or made
Seas of Snow is a story of broken trust and shattered dreams. Of consequences. Of a life lifted and liberated by poetry. Of a life haunted by darkness and lived in fear.
This is the tale of Gracie Scott, who becomes fascinated by the work of Rainer Maria Rilke and delights in his words for guidance and succour. But when her psychopath uncle Joe enters her life, is poetry enough?
Alternating between contemporary North Tyneside and around the time of World War Two, Seas of Snow dances through time, backwards and forwards between the literary reveries and troubles of the young girl, and the old woman of today, frail and isolated in a nursing home.
Seas of Snow is a bleak psychological thriller about trust and betrayal told with a distinctive and complex narrative voice.
Having started her career in journalism and television programme making, Kerensa is a storyteller at heart. Writing is her passion.
Kerensa is Director, Office of HRH The Duke of York, KG. She runs The Duke of York Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA) which is part of The Prince Andrew Charitable Trust. She is also very proud to be Visiting Professor of Media, Strategy and Communications at the award-winning University of Huddersfield.
Kerensa has worked with Sir David Frost as Programme Editor of Breakfast with Frost at the BBC, and has made numerous award-winning programmes, films and projects. The roll call of people she has worked with, written for or directed over twenty years includes everyone from Nelson Mandela to a number of British Prime Ministers to Sir David Attenborough, James Nesbitt, Alex James, Fiona Bruce, Rageh Omaar, Rory Bremner and Billy Bragg.
Highlights include the years she spent as Head of Strategic Delivery at the BBC, creating the strategy for the pan-UK digital education and engagement campaign 'Make it Digital'; making a documentary with George Alagiah; an eight part series for the prestigious BBC Natural History Unit on palaeontology; a documentary on the Soham murders; being the BBC's Election Results Editor; running New Year Live on the BBC; working at Sky; and being part of the small team that launched Five News at ITN.
Another side of her career reflects her interest in psychology - Kerensa is a trained, qualified and accredited Executive Coach, Executive Coach Supervisor, MBTI practitioner and Workplace Mediator. She is particularly fascinated by the psychology and motives of psychopaths. It was this interest that sparked the inspiration for Seas of Snow, although all the characters in the story are fictional.
In writing the novel - the first of three literary psychological thrillers inspired by her work in the field - Kerensa also weaves in her love of poetry.
JENNIE ENSOR
A thriller set in London during the time of the 7/7 terror attacks
The story begins in London in 2005, a few months before the 7/7 bus and Tube bombings. Georgie agrees to have sex with Julian, her close friend from their university days. Wary of relationships after previous heartbreak, she is shocked when Julian reveals he has loved her for a long time but felt unable to tell her.
Soon afterwards Georgie meets Nikolai, an ex-soldier recently arrived from Russia. Despite her misgivings, she can’t resist him; Julian, jealous of his perceived rival, struggles to deal with Georgie’s rejection. Georgie begins to realise how deeply war-time incidents in Chechnya have affected Nikolai, and wonders what terrible thing the Russian is hiding from her.
Then London is attacked. In the climate of anxiety and suspicion post-7/7, Georgie must work out who she can trust and who she should fear, before it’s too late.
Blind Side explores love and friendship, guilt and betrayal, secrets and obsession. How well we can ever really know anyone? And what should we do if we find out that the unthinkable has happened? An explosive, debate-provoking thriller that confronts urgent issues of our times and contemplates some of our deepest fears.
Jennie Ensor is a Londoner descended from a long line of Irish folk. During a long period overseas she worked as a freelance journalist, covering topics from forced marriages to accidents in the mining industry.
These days Ms E lives in London with her husband and their cuddle-loving, sofa-hogging terrier. When not chasing the dog through local woodland or dreaming of setting off on an unfeasibly long journey with a Kindleful of books, she writes novels, short stories and poetry. Her second novel, to be finished soon with any luck, is a dark and unsettling psychological drama.
JESSICA DUCHEN
The strangest detective story in the history of music – inspired by a true incident.
A world spiralling towards war. A composer descending into madness. And a devoted woman struggling to keep her faith in art and love against all the odds.
1933. Dabbling in the fashionable “Glass Game” – a Ouija board – the famous Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi, one-time muse to composers such as Bartók, Ravel and Elgar, encounters a startling dilemma. A message arrives ostensibly from the spirit of the composer Robert Schumann, begging her to find and perform his long-suppressed violin concerto.
She tries to ignore it, wanting to concentrate instead on charity concerts. But against the background of the 1930s depression in London and the rise of the Nazis in Germany, a struggle ensues as the “spirit messengers” do not want her to forget.
The concerto turns out to be real, embargoed by Schumann’s family for fear that it betrayed his mental disintegration: it was his last full-scale work, written just before he suffered a nervous breakdown after which he spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital. It shares a theme with his Geistervariationen (Ghost Variations) for piano, a melody he believed had been dictated to him by the spirits of composers beyond the grave.
As rumours of its existence spread from London to Berlin, where the manuscript is held, Jelly embarks on an increasingly complex quest to find the concerto. When the Third Reich’s administration decides to unearth the work for reasons of its own, a race to perform it begins.
Though aided and abetted by a team of larger-than-life personalities – including her sister Adila Fachiri, the pianist Myra Hess, and a young music publisher who falls in love with her – Jelly finds herself confronting forces that threaten her own state of mind. Saving the concerto comes to mean saving herself.
In the ensuing psychodrama, the heroine, the concerto and the pre-war world stand on the brink, reaching together for one more chance of glory.
Jessica Duchen writes for The Independent on classical music, opera and ballet, and during the past 25 years has interviewed many of the world’s finest musicians. Her first four novels (published by Hodder) have gathered a loyal fan-base and wide acclaim. “Duchen has a rare talent which is increasingly being recognised” (Gavin Esler, The Glasgow Herald).
Jessica grew up in London, read music at Cambridge, also studying piano, and felt torn at first between the prospects of a musical career and a literary one. Having decided to be “sensible” – perhaps a debatable point – and choose the latter, she held editorial posts on several music magazines before going freelance to concentrate on writing.
Jessica lives in London with her violinist husband and their two cats. She enjoys playing the piano, preferably when nobody can hear her, as well as cookery, long walks and plundering second-hand bookshops for out-of-print musical gems.
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