About this Event
Comma Press Writers' days are perfect for beginner writers to experiment with new forms and meet new people!
Join us at Ashton Library for a folklore and historical fiction workshop, led by Out of Human Sight author Sophie Parkes, followed by a panel discussion where Sophie will be joined by fellow writers Kenzie Millar and Sue Barker, who will talk about writing from folkloric or historical sources. This is the perfect chance to ask questions about writing or getting published. There will also be time for any book signings!
Order:
10.45-12.15 pm workshop - led by Sophie Parkes
Lunch 12.15 pm -12.45 pm
12.45 - 2pm Readings and Panel ( Sophie Parkes, Kenzie Millar and Sue Barker)
About the performers:
Sophie Parkes is coming to the end of her PhD in Creative Writing and Folklore at Sheffield Hallam University, for which she won a Vice Chancellor's Scholarship. Her debut novel, Out of Human Sight, set in 1832 Saddleworth, was shortlisted for the NorthBound Book Award and was published in January 2023. She is a previous winner of a Northern Writers’ Award and has also published an official biography of musician Eliza Carthy and ghostwritten the autobiography of an endurance athlete. Sophie is an Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University, runs the Mossley Writers community writing group, and facilitates workshops for a wide range of organisations.
Kenzie Millar is a writer and reviewer. From her first book, written age 11, “Mustard Seeds”, she knew she wanted to be an author and give her readers the magical gift of being taken to another world. While Kenzie-World has grown somewhat darker, she still hopes her readers will enjoy the discomfort and unease she creates. Her short stories are inspired by folklore and fantasy, but focus on themes of motherhood, gender, and chronic pain.Kenzie's short story, Pass Through the Waters, a Regency-era epistolary story about falling in love with a selkie, was published by Fly on the Wall Press in 2022. She was praised for "silky prose and the thrilling wonders she teases out of the depths". Kenzie was a runner up in the Orton 2020 competition, with her story Yuletide. Subsequently, she judged their 2021 & 2022 competition. She has performed at The Other, Endostravaganza, and We Want Women. As a book fanatic, she also reviews books for the Crack magazine
Sue Barker is the author of four books. Her third novel, The Incarnations, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and Notable Book, a Kirkus Reviews’ Top Ten Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. Her fourth novel Old Soul is a literary horror and is forthcoming in 2025 from Penguin in the UK and US . She currently lives in Manchester, where she is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.
About Comma Press:
Founded by Ra Page and Sarah Eyre, and formally incorporated in 2007, Comma's initial purpose was to redress the dearth of short story publishing opportunities in the UK, bringing award-winning writers like David Constantine, Sara Maitland and Adam Marek to new audiences. Our popular, long-running 'Reading the City' series has proven that people's engagement with place can override other barriers to reading fiction in translation, and has now visited over 20 cities worldwide. Our interdisciplinary commissions celebrate the short story's ability to take deep dives into cutting-edge research, and our 'Futures Past' series has delivered ground-breaking anthologies of science fiction from Palestine, Iraq, Kurdistan and elsewhere.
Comma has an international reputation for excellent and ground-breaking commissioning. Our titles and authors have won multiple awards ranging from the World Fantasy Award (Robert Shearman's Tiny Deaths, 2008) and the Shirley Jackson Award (The New Uncanny, 2008) to the BBC National Short Story Award (David Constantine, 2010the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (David Constantine's Tea at the Midland, 2013), the Caine Prize (Bushra Al-Fadil, 2017), and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (Hassan Blasim's The Iraqi Christ 2014) – the first time it had been won by a short story collection or a book translated from the Arabic. Our podcast was shortlisted for the 2019 FutureBook Award, Podcast of the Year, and, as a publisher, we won the 2020 Small Press of the Year (Northern Region) at The Bookseller’s British Book Awards. In 2017 we also won the inaugural Northern Soul Northern Publisher of the Year Award. Comma has published two subsequent Nobel Prize winners; it has sold rights to its titles into over 30 languages, sold 7 titles to Audible, seen over 60 stories broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and had two stories adapted for the big screen: POSSUM (dir. Matthew Holness) and 45 YEARS (dir. Andrew Haigh), the latter receiving an Oscar nomination for Charlotte Rampling, winning 2 Silver Bears at Berlinale and being voted The Guardian's No. 1 best film of 2015.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Ashton Library and Information Service, Market Place, Ashton-under-Lyne, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
