Emma works in a mind numbingly dull nine to five in her home city of Hull. Friends, nights out and a love of rock music are keeping her sane. When news of Kurt Cobain’s death breaks in 1994, she becomes consumed with anxiety, the death of one of her favourite musicians causing an existential crisis. Her 27th birthday is fast approaching and she fears she may be next to join the club.

So begins a plan to put it right. In this pacy, witty and utterly relatable novel, Lucy Nichol explores issues of finding an in crowd, knowing your place, figuring out what matters, and growing into your own skin. She uncovers what makes Emma tick and how her relationships and friendships keep her going. And she does it all with the passion and fierceness of someone who loves music.

It’s a fiercely pacy novel that perfectly explores coming of age, and what it means to grow into yourself. Insightful, tender and thought provoking it’s an easy read that explores big issues in a relatable way. Although at times a nostalgia trip, it’s certainly not only for anyone who was there.

Nichol is open and honest about her own mental health, and a big advocate for funding, challenging stigma, and being open and honest about it. She writes with the rawness and intensity of someone who has been there.

The novel is already being adapted for stage by Live Theatre and will be taking to the Newcastle stage.

Why festivals matter

It’s a great way of reaching audiences and engaging with new people. You can find out more about what they want, what they like, and how they read and consume your content. You can raise your profile and become known. You might meet useful people. You can probably sell some books. Either way, you’ll have fun!

Be a festival supporter

If you want to appear and festivals, then go to them. You can learn a lot by watching and listening to others, and see what works and what doesn’t. Follow them on social media and engage with them in conversation.

Do your research

Before you start pitching you need to know what is out there. The simplest thing to do is google ‘literature festival UK’ and you’ll find lots of search results. There used to be websites and newsletters for it, but unfortunately, Covid-19 took a hit, and many are defunct. The Writers & Artists Yearbook does have a section, and you can register online for their listings for a fee. Go through and see which ones resonate with you. If you’re a crime writer you might look at Newcastle Noir or Harrogate Crime Festival, whereas if your niche is poetry, you’ll consider The European Poetry Festival.

As part of that research whittle down a shortlist of 8-10 that you’d love to appear at. Make a spreadsheet of the festival, website, contact details, dates (try not to apply for ones you can’t actually make, or that clash) – and then a space to hone your offer. Some festivals have details guidelines on the websites, so make sure to follow those.

One size doesn’t fit all

Because in doing your research you should have discovered that every festival is different – so your pitch needs to be. That doesn’t mean you need to reinvent the wheel every time. But you do need to show that you have thought about why your work is relevant to them and will help them position their festival as something different. Look at the kind of events they have run before – do you fit in. You don’t want to repeat last year’s offering, but it can help you see the kind of things they programme. Look at the language they use on the website – are they chatty and informal, or very bookish and studious? This helps you determine their audience. Look into the ethos of the festival, see who they’ve booked in the past and how your work and platform relates to them.

Show you’ve done your research and thought about them by suggesting content for a particular stage, or say ‘I know X last year sold out, so I think Y might suit your audience.’

Your event is not a hard sell for your book. Some of the best talks I’ve ever heard are not about the artist’s book at all, but about topics and issues that come up. It’s an opportunity to engage with an audience in a very immediate and exciting way.

What can you offer

You’re obviously getting a lot from being a speaker at a festival – what can you give back? It’s not enough to just have a book out – so does everyone else who is applying. What makes you stand out? Are there particular topics you cover in your book that you can speak knowledgeably on? Have you had to do research and are now an expert in a certain field? Do you have a unique perspective on the writer’s life? Stand back from your work to stand out from the crowd.

Do what they say

If they have a form, use the form. Or if they ask you to email, that. Probably don’t phone them.

Leave the bells and whistles at home

Don’t try suggesting the most elaborate set up – festivals are busy, the stages change acts constantly. There’s no time to set up your backdrop, custom lighting and props unless you’re headlining and they’re setting aside a venue for you.

Endorsements

If you can get recommendations from other festival promoters or people who have seen your work, that will go a long way towards selling you. The fact is that the festival organiser won’t have time to read every book of every author who contacts them, so they will be looking for other evidence that this is the person for them. And social proof sells. If you haven’t been on a festival stage before, have you got quotes from readers you can share?

Evidence

If you’ve got a short video of you speaking or performing, that’s great. That gives me reassurance that you can get up in front of people and deliver. Not every writer is a good public speaker. That’s ok. But know your talents, and showcase them where you can.

Make it easy

I’ve lost count of the number of authors who email me and say ‘I’m a writer and I have a book.’ Do you know what, I don’t have time to do the digging myself. Send me

• Who you are
• A short bio – 2-3 lines max
• Name of your book/work
• A short blurb – again 2-3 lines max
• Any subjects you feel confident speaking about
• What you want to offer – do you want to do a reading, be on a panel, do a workshop, a talk, a Q&A. This will help me work out where best to fit you in the line up.
• Headshots

Check and check again

My name isn’t Fran or Sandra, I don’t run Ramsgate Book Festival, and I’m not a fan of crime. When doing cut and paste jobs it’s very easy to forget to change the name, or address it to the wrong person. It’s an easy way to get someone’s back up, so do check.

Follow up

If you don’t hear back within a few weeks, chase again. But not within a few days. Many people run literature festivals for love, so they’re not on it full time and can’t be as responsive as you might like. But say 2-3 weeks – a gentle nudge to check they have your email is fine. Don’t phone someone on a Sunday afternoon – that’s really not cool.

Don’t take it personally

The fact is, you won’t win every pitch. That’s ok. Feel free to ask for feedback. They might just have a packed agenda, might not have the budget, or you might just not be the best fit. There’s plenty more out there, so get pitching.

And that’s it! If you’ve got any questions, please email me!

As a result of a rowdy night in his local New York bar, ex-Marine and merchant seaman “Chick” Donohue volunteers for a legendary mission. He will sneak into Vietnam to track down his buddies in combat to bring them a cold beer and supportive messages from home. It’ll be the greatest beer run ever!

Now, decades on from 1968, this is the remarkable true story of how he actually did it.

Armed with Irish luck and a backpack full of alcohol, Chick works his passage to Vietnam, lands in Qui Nhon and begins to carry out his quest, tracking down the disbelieving soldiers one by one.

But things quickly go awry, and as he talks his way through checkpoints and unwittingly into dangerous situations, Chick sees a lot more of the war than he ever planned – spending a terrifying time in the Demilitarized Zone, and getting caught up in Saigon during the Tet Offensive.

With indomitable spirit, Chick survives on his wits, but what he finds in Vietnam comes as a shock. By the end of his epic adventure, battered and exhausted, Chick finds himself questioning why his friends were ever led into the war in the first place.

Buy here.

We were in Doc Fiddler’s one cold night in November 1967. It was a favorite bar in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, at 275 Sherman Avenue, above Isham Street. George Lynch was the bartender. We called him the Colonel. It was an honorary title, since he had made only private first class in the army.

But he was a great military historian and patriot.

One day the Colonel commandeered the empty lot on the corner and erected a gigantic flagpole—something you might find in Central Park or in front of a government building. It’s still there. Every morning, he would ceremoniously raise the flag; every sunset, he would lower it. Each Memorial Day and Fourth of July, the Colonel would organize a parade up Sherman Avenue. He tapped his connections to make it huge.

He got Bill Lenahan, who was the commanding officer of the US Marine Corps Reserve at Fort Schuyler, the nineteenth-century fort in Throggs Neck that’s now home to the State University of New York’s Maritime College and Museum, to literally send in the marines to march. The Colonel’s efforts took on an even greater urgency now that we were at war in Vietnam and with so many of our neighborhood boys serving there.

The Colonel got Finbar Devine, a towering man who lived up the street and who headed the New York City Police Department (NYPD) Pipes and Drums of the Emerald Society, to lead the flying wedge of kilted bagpipers and drummers while wearing his plumed fur Hussar’s hat and thrusting his mace heavenward. Father Kevin Devine, Finbar’s brother and the Good Shepherd Parish priest, got all the priests and the nuns and the kids from the Catholic school to march, too. Another Devine brother was with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Colonel convinced him to organize a contingent of FBI agents to come out from under cover and march. The Colonel was beautifully crazy.

He treated the boys who came back from the war like kings. At Doc Fiddler’s, they didn’t pay for a drink. Around the corner from the bar, in what we called the Barracks, he lived in a room with two army surplus bunk beds—one for himself and one for any GI who’d come home and needed a place to stay.

Behind the bar, the Colonel ruled. He listened and laughed and could tell a story like your Irish grandfather, doing every accent and voice, no word astray, with a finish that would cure your asthma laughing. But he was tough, and those who engaged in tomfoolery on his watch were soon jettisoned. The Colonel had become unhappy lately with what he was seeing on news reports about the war. Antiwar protesters were turning anti-soldier.

Not just anti–President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who escalated the conflict he’d inherited from President John F. Kennedy by increasing the troops from JFK’s sixteen thousand to half a million. Nor were they strictly focused on General William Westmoreland, commander of US forces in Vietnam, who was asking for even more troops to be deployed. Protesters were now training their sights on teenagers who’d been drafted, and on veterans who’d come home from a hell they couldn’t express. We were told that when the neighborhood boys had gone down to the draft board on Whitehall Street—many so inexperienced that their fathers or older brothers accompanied them—they’d been met by picketers carrying signs that read, “GIs Are Murderers.”

But as in most romantic comedies, a man has derailed things. And everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone’s moving to the suburbs.

Is she doing it all wrong? As you’d expect from the sharp Alderton, Ghosts takes a different view. One where strong relationships can coexist alongside boozy Sundays, families thrive as well as friendships, and women can forge their own path.

One assumes there are echoes of Dolly Alderton’s own life in this – a writer, living in London, with great girlfriends and going on dates – but maybe that just makes it a more truly drawn piece. Great fun and I’m sure the precursor to many more.

The rest, as they say, isn’t history. How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton?

Rodham is Curtis Sittenfeld’s sixth novel, echoing her 2008 novel American Wife in which she imagined the life of a first lady like Laura Bush. Full of lively conversation, deep politics, and a lot of sex, it’s a pacy novel that follows the life of a firey woman who could hold her own against anyone in political office.

Sittenfield is clearly a Clinton fan, and whilst you don’t have to be to read the novel, it certainly helps if you have some interest in their life. It begins with the famous speech at her 1969 Wellesley graduation ceremony where Hillary told off the conservative senator who spoke before her, which sets the tone for the energy of the main protagonist. Women in the pubic eye are often held to ludicrously high standards, and the author challenges this at the same time as creating warmth and empathy to a woman who is not at all cold and calculating.

Even though she doesn’t stay with him, and leaves at the first sign of infidelity, Hillary does truly love Bill – and it wasn’t just sexual. ‘I knew plenty of smart people, but I’d never before encountered a person whose intelligence sharpened mine the way his did,’ she says. There’s a certain thrill that comes with seeing her in emotional and domestic settings, so far removed from the reputation that has been built up over the last few years. But she’s also a political powerhouse, and Sittenfeld draws the conclusion that without Hillary Bill’s political career would never have happened.

Most women in the public eye are full of contradictions. Is there any value in imagining an alternate life for them and seeing where those layers take us? Maybe not, but Sittenfield is a good writer and tells a story with emotion and empathy.

How different the world could have been.

How did you discover the power of walking?

When I was sixteen, I came home from school one day in a terrible mood and my dad took one look at me and said “go for a walk and then we’ll talk.” I took his advice and vividly recall the way my mood had shifted by the time I got home 20 minutes later. Since then, walking has always been part of my personal practice.

How does walking help us?

Walking is a simple, but incredibly powerful practice. The research around all of the things walking does for us is truly remarkable. For our bodies, a regular walking practice reduces our risk of many diseases, from high blood pressure to dementia to several types of cancer. For our mood, walking has been shown to be an effective tool in the arsenal against depression and, as I often say, walking is a great antidote to a crappy day. And walking is good for our minds by improving our decision making, increasing our focus and fueling our creativity.

What does ‘better’ mean for you?

Oh, that’s such a good question — no one has asked me that. By better, I mean happier and working our way towards living a life that is more closely aligned with our true personal goals, priorities and purpose.

What has been the biggest ‘a ha’ moment you’ve had whilst walking?

I really can’t point to one “lightning bolt” moment. Walking is more of a process for me. A time in my day when I sort through what’s on my mind and untangle my thoughts.

What for you is the link between stories and walking?

I feel that we are all running so fast and doing so much that what’s missing for many of us is the chance to let our minds wander and process and percolate and create. It’s no surprise to me that the research shows a very significant increase in our ability to generate creative ideas following a walk. All of those things come together to make working and stories — whether creating stories or contemplating them — closely connected.

And so she makes a list. A list to change herself from the wine quaffing curry eating mess that she is. When she’s ticked off every item, she’ll become Maggie 2.0 – the best version of herself, and the one she wants to be. Won’t she…?

1. Go vegan. It worked for that girl on Twitter.
2. Take up yoga – that woman she hate-follows swears by it.
3. Start practising mindfulness – all those people can’t be wrong…
4. Quit smoking. It’s not 1999.

This is Mary Hargreaves‘ debut novel, and she’s a voice to watch. Trapeze have signed her for a two book deal, so it looks like we will have a new book. Which I’m thrilled about. Humorous and heartwarming, it’s a great read.

Ben Saunders, one of the world’s leading polar explorers, skied to both the North and South Poles solo and speaks about the time he ran out of food and wanted to give up. Melanie McGrath talks about what she has learned from being paralysed in a riding accident. Kate Leaver is an author and journalist writing about women, pop culture and mental health at Glamour UK, Vice and  Guardian – and she has recovered from anorexia, and describes her difficult experiences and the complexities with finding a good relationship with food in a world obsessed with diet culture. Irenosen Okojie a novelist and short story writer writes about the crippling anxiety with being faced with a blank page, and of feeling other. It’s her brother’s death that is the subject of Cathy Rentzinbrink’s piece, whilst Rory Bremner speaks about life with ADHD.

This is a powerful book, full of heart tugging stories and narratives of strength. Struggle and strife isn’t billed us something to yearn for, it’s not that great people are built only in great despair. But more a tale of how we all have our difficulties, and it’s in the process of going through clarity can come and growth can be achieved. What doesn’t kill you can indeed make you stronger.