News from Centre for New Writing students and alumni, June 2018

Holly Ringland will be in conversation with Kate Leaver at Waterstones on Deansgate, Manchester to discuss her new novel The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart which was released for sale in the UK on 28 June. Holly took a Master's and PhD in Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing and is described by Brooke David, bestselling author of Lost & Found, as ‘a gifted, natural story-teller and her novel is truly a light-giving, tender thing. A vivid, compelling, utterly moving debut.’

Melissa Welliver has been selected for The Bath Novel Award longlist for her novel The Eternals. The Bath Novel Award is a £2,500 international prize for emerging novelists and Melissa’s novel is one of 24 longlisted from over 1,000 submissions.

PhD student Joe Mungo Reed has had his first novel We Begin Our Ascent published by Simon and Schuster in the USA. The novel will be released for sale in the UK on 5 July, published by Harper Collins Publishers, and has been reviewed in the New York Times.

Natalie Rees (MA 2009) has won second prize at the Flambard Poetry Prize 2017, a prize run by the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts, and awarded annually to the best group of up to five poems submitted by a poet who has not yet published a single-authored pamphlet or collection.

Valerie O’Riordan has been shortlisted for the Tom-Gallon Trust Award for short fiction for her short story Livestock. The award is run by the Society of Authors and award judges Paul Bailey and Irenosen Okojie say of Natalie’s novel: ‘The eagle-eyed protagonist of Valerie O'Riordan's funny, acerbic rollicking tale seizes the reader's attention immediately.’

Joe Carrick-Varty is one of the winners of the 2017/18 New Poets Prize, run by The Poetry Business. New Poets Prize judge Kayo Chingonyi says of Joe’s collection Somewhere Far: ‘Technical excellence rises above mere flair into something very special. These are assured and beguiling poems.’

Cait O' Sullivan is taking her new play Living with a Dark Lord to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The play is also being performed in London at The Drayton Arms Theatre on 3 and 4 July.