About this Event
Join us for the launch of two incredible debut novels which both explore modern life in small town Britain, Sammy Wright's FIT and Steve Hollyman's LAIRIES. Sammy and Steve will be in conversation with Manchester Writing School's Nicholas Royle.
Doors 6.30pm, event starts: 6.45pm
Sammy Wright - FIT (And Other Stories)
Fit is the first novel by Sammy Wright, a secondary-school teacher with first-hand experience of a contemporary Britain in which children starve and the gulf between rich and poor is vast and growing. Charting the impact on a small community of a girl being plucked by happenstance from her foster home and dropped into a dazzling new life as a London model, Fit is a moving, tragic, but ultimately hopeful look at the ways in which poverty and neglect can echo through a life . . . even after you think you’ve gotten your fairy-tale ending.
Fit was the winner, by unanimous decision, of the 2020 Northern Book Prize.
Sammy Wright is a high school teacher and administrator. He was brought up in Scotland, worked in London for twelve years, and now lives and works in north England with his wife and family. Fit, his debut, is the winner of the Northern Book Prize, awarded for the best unpublished manuscript from the North of England by a jury including the writers Sunjeev Sahota and Daniel Trilling.
Steve Hollyman - LAIRIES (Influx Press)
Shaun wakes up in hospital after a fight in a local nightclub and discovers his girlfriend has been assaulted. Ade and Colbeck were there that night – the climax to weeks of escalating violence, their two-man vigilante mission to kick back against a broken generation. A misguided plan to combat the lairies that blight Britain’s bars, pubs and streets.
What really happened? And how did it come to this?
Lairies is the brilliant and brutal debut from Steve Hollyman, mapping the lives of violent young men at the start of the twenty-first century, living aimlessly but desperately hunting for purpose. Hollyman speaks to the heart of small-town Britain, offering scathing insight into masculinity, class, and the bleak realities of a man’s aimless early twenties, lifting the lid on a world most would rather ignore.
Steve Hollyman was born in Stoke-on-Trent and currently works as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing. He is a graduate of the Manchester Writing School, where he completed an MA and PhD. He is the vocalist and guitarist in the three-piece alternative rock band CreepJoint --This text refers to the paperback edition.
FIT and LAIRIES will both be available to purchase on the night and Sammy and Steve will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make it to the event, please contact us on 0161 274 3331 or [email protected] and we can arrange this for you. Covid-19 precautions will be adhered to in order to ensure the safety of our attendees, authors and booksellers.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Blackwell's Bookshop, 146 Oxford Road, Manchester, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00 to GBP 3.00