Arts
Ever on the hunt for new literary voices, we bring together a panel of authors and an audience of readers to explore the road to publication and what lies beyond. Working with Vintage, we welcome writers Kirsty Logan, Ruth Ware and Vesna Goldsworthy to the stage to talk to journalist and Vintage Podcast host Alex Clark. We settle down to listen to our evening's speakers discussing the development of their work and how they secured industry support. The focus of the night is on discovering new voices in contemporary literature, providing insight into how these authors write and what it's like to be an author at the start of your career. Glasgow-based journalist and author Kirsty Logan won the 2014 Saboteur Award for Best Short Story Collection with 'The Rental Heart & Other Fairytales' before penning breakout debut 'The Gracekeepers'—a magical tale of a floating circus adrift in a flooded world, the telling of which has been compared to the work of luminaries such as Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood. Ruth Ware provides the dark chills of the evening in the form of debut psychological thriller 'In a Dark, Dark Wood'. Touted as the next big thing in crime fiction, this is a tale of toxic friendship and power games gone wrong as estranged friends reunite for a hen party in a woodland retreat, in a tightly-plotted whodunit reminiscent of Agatha Christie and Sophie Hannah. Serbian poet and writer Vesna Goldsworthy is also no stranger to print, having previously published nonfiction cultural history 'Inventing Ruritania' and a memoir, 'Chernobyl Strawberries'. This year's Great Gatsby-inspired 'Gorsky' marks her first novel—the eponymous Russian oligarch of which tasks exiled Serbian bookseller Nikola to curate a model library, in an attempt to win the heart of a woman with whom both men are infatuated.