Julia Bell

Because of her mother's obsession with weight coupled with the false idea that being thin is the key to success, young Carmen becomes just as obsessed as her mother in having a perfect body.

Massive

Two teenaged girls with little in common must find a way to work together if they are ever to escape their captors after being abducted into an international prostitution ring.

Dirty Work

Paul Magrs

A fully updated comprehensive guide for improving and practicing your creative writing, including contributions from Ali Smith and Kit de Waal The Creative Writing Coursebook, edited by Julia Bell and Paul Magrs, takes aspiring writers through three stages of essential practice: Gathering – getting started, learning how to keep notes, making observations and using memory; Shaping – looking at structure, point of view, character and setting; and Finishing – being your own critic, joining workshops and finding publishers. Fully updated and including a foreword by Marina Warner and contributions from forty-four authors such as Kit de Waal and Amy Liptrot, this is the perfect book for people who are just starting to write as well as for those who want some help honing work already completed. Filled with a wealth of exercises and activities, it will inspire budding writers to develop and hone their skills. Whether writing for publication, in a group or just for pleasure this comprehensive guide is for anyone who is ready to put pen to paper.

Forty Authors Share Advice and Exercises for Fiction and Poetry

The Creative Writing Coursebook

An essay on the battle for our attention in the age of distraction. Attention pays. In today's online economy it has become a commodity to be bought and sold. Bombarding us with free smartphone apps and news websites, developers and advertisers have turned what and how focus our attention into the world's fastest growing industry. In exchange for our attention, information and entertainment is ever at our fingertips. But at what cost? In this essay, at once personal and polemical, meditative and militant, Julia Bell asks what has been lost in this trade off. How can we reclaim our attention? In a world of infinite distraction, how can attention become radical?

Radical Attention

Covering every stage of the writing process, offers exercises and activities to help develop writing skills and includes contributions from forty authors providing practical information, personal experiences, and advice.

Forty Writers Share Advice and Exercises for Poetry and Prose

Gaynor Arnold

An anthology of 22 stories set in the West Midlands and written by past and present members of the influential Tindal Street Fiction Group. Some authors ( e.g. Annie Murray, Amanda Smyth, Alan Beard, Gaynor Arnold, Joel Lane, Mick Scully, Mez Packer, Jackie Gay) are published novelists or story-writers. Others like Sibyl Ruth, Charles Wilkinson, Roz Goddard and Polly Wright are better-known as poets or dramatists. Fiona Joseph has written biography, Julia Bell writes teenage fiction and Luke Brown and Kavita Bhanot have both been editors as well as writers. New names included are Kit de Waal, Natalie White, James B Goodwin, Anthony Ferner, Georgina Bruce and Ryan Davis. Thje title story by Mick Scully has been chosen by Nicholas Royle for 'Best Short Stories of 2013'.

30 Years of the Tindal Street Fiction Group

The Sea in Birmingham

Mat Bates

Following the critically acclaimed Queer Life, Queer Love comes the second anthology, championing new and emerging writers alongside established authors. The anthology features voices across all narrative forms including fiction, poetry, memoir, essay and flash-fiction. The anthology will comprise 30 pieces of writing, the winning entries from an international competition to capture the best of queer writing today. Following the critically acclaimed Queer Life, Queer Love comes the second anthology, championing new and emerging writers alongside established authors. The anthology features voices across all narrative forms including fiction, poetry, memoir, essay and flash-fiction. The anthology will comprise 30 pieces of writing, the winning entries from an international competition to capture the best of queer writing today.

The second anthology

Queer Life, Queer Love.

Weight has always been a big issue in Carmen's life. Not surprising when her mum is obsessed with the idea that thin equals beauty, thin equals success, thin equals the way to get what you want. And somehow her daughter is going to be thin. When her mother sweeps her off to live in the city, Carmen finds her old world disappearing. With everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose. Carmen starts to ask: if she were thin, very thin, could it all be different? A new cover edition of Julia Bell's critically acclaimed YA novel, Massive, published to coincide with the release of Julia's new book, The Dark Light. 'Bell's debut novel is tough, grimy and truthful as it looks at three women in the same family with food problems.' The Guardian ' ... boldly yet sensitively explores complex interactions between emotional and nutritional needs ... perceptive and disturbing.' The Bookseller ' ... told with sympathy and humour ... manages to be enjoyable as well as thought-provoking.' The Big Issue.

'Ten minutes to midnight!' Jonathan shouts over the sound of the blazing fire. Sparks rise into the sky and mingle with the stars. 'Only ten minutes!' Bevins says, falling down on his knees. 'So it begins.' Rebekah has lived on the island her whole life, and it's only now that she's starting to wonder what she might experience outside her strict religious community. Alex has been sent to the island to escape her dark past, and through her eyes it's a dark and sinister place. Thrown together by chance, Rebekah and Alex strike up an unlikely friendship and it's together that they attempt to break free of their worlds and make a world of their own. But when a kiss between the girls is witnessed by an islander there is no escape they can make - the Rapture is coming for them all.

The Dark Light

A topical, edgy, emotive and compelling story written in two powerful first-person voicesHope has everything that money can buy . . . except happiness. She may be spoilt but Hope's sure that as far as her preoccupied parents are concerned, she's hopeless. Oksana doesn't even have a mum. And her dad and brother are miles away, left behind in Russia. She thought Europe would offer a better life - instead, bought and sold into prostitution, she feels dirty and used. Then Oksana and Hope are thrown together in the most terrifying circumstances imaginable. Their only real chance of escape lies with each other, but how do two teenagers with so little in common find the way . . . ? A tense, shocking novel - with a hint of hope.

Eley Williams

Kamila Shamsie

Luan Goldie

Lucy Caldwell

Martin Edwards

Nikita Lalwani

Irfan Master

Bidisha

SJ Bradley

Jude Brown

Steve Chambers

Uschi Gatward

Gaia Holmes

Zoe Lambert

Anna Lewis

Donny O'Rourke

Karline Smith

Kim Squirrell

Lucas Stewart

At a time that feels unprecedented in British politics – with unlawful prorogations of parliament, casual race-baiting by senior politicians, and a climate crisis that continues to be ignored – it’s easy to think these are uncharted waters for us, as a democracy. But Britain has seen political crises and far-right extremism before, just as it has witnessed regressive, heavy-handed governments. Much worse has been done, or allowed to be done, in the name of the people and eventually, those same people have called it out, stood up, resisted. In this new collection of fictions and essays, spanning two millennia of British protest, authors, historians and activists re-imagine twenty acts of defiance: campaigns to change unjust laws, protests against unlawful acts, uprisings successful and unsuccessful – from Boudica to Blair Peach, from the Battle of Cable Street to the tragedy of Grenfell Tower. Britain might not be famous for its revolutionary spirit, but its people know when to draw the line, and say very clearly, ‘¡No pasarán!’ This project has been supported by the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust and the Lipman-Miliband Trust, as well as Arts Council England. Part of Comma's 'History-into-Fiction' series.

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