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RLF Fellows’ News: February 2025

- 3 February, 2025
Publishing
Penny Boxall’s first novel for children, Letty and the Mystery of the Golden Thread, has been published by Puffin.
Set in 1774, 12-year-old Lettice Breech visits Europe with her Pa, seeing French art, Roman ruins and spectacular Greek carvings. But when Pa is thrown in gaol accused of forging a famous statue, Letty escapes with a notebook of clues and her pet magpie to find the statue’s missing pieces and prove Pa’s innocence.
Letty and the Mystery of the Golden Thread is Blackwells’ Children’s Book of the Month, and you can see Penny talking about the book on Blackwells YouTube channel.
An extract from Diana Evans’ new book of essays, I Want to Talk to You, has been published in The Guardian.
In the essay, Diana writes about being part of the ‘sandwich generation’, and how supporting her children and taking care of her elderly mother impacted her ability to write, saying:
“After weeks of dealing with the scramble of tasks involved in helping my mother settle in, helping the children towards their new chapters, and in the midst of these trying to write, I was on the verge of full-scale, agonising burnout.”
I Want to Talk to You is published by Penguin on 6 February.
Sophie Kirtley’s new picture book Our Wee Place is out on 10 February.
Illustrated by Ellan Rankin and published by The O’Brien Press, Our Wee Place sees little Emily and her Granda journey across Northern Ireland, finding out about lots of different places.
Originally commissioned in 2021 by the Northern Ireland Office as part of the centenary programme, a copy of Our Wee Place was given to every child who started P1 in Northern Ireland as well as to libraries and Surestart centres.
The book has since developed a fond following with families as a warm and inclusive celebration of the culture, language and magic of Northern Ireland, and will now be able to reach new readers and inspire more adventures. Find out more here.
Maggie Harris’ new collection of poetry, I Sing to the Greenhearts, will be published by Seren on 17 February.
Described by the publisher as a collection “haunted by ghosts of colonial history,” I Sing to the Greenhearts challenges the dullness of the pastoral, and is unafraid to engage with Western art in critiquing how we view the environment.
Maggie will read from I Sing to the Greenhearts at Faversham Literary Festival on 22 February, alongside Rosie Johnston and Michael Bartholomew-Briggs.
For more information and to buy tickets, visit the Faversham Literary Festival website.
Rosemary Jenkinson’s debut novel The Memorisers is described as “a blistering portrayal of World War III and a satire on the West’s current assault on free speech.” It follows Jo, a journalist reporting from the front line of a war-torn country, and what happens after she wakes up in hospital and can’t remember the story she was covering.
As research for The Memorisers, Rosemary travelled five times to war-torn Ukraine, spending time in the frontline city of Kherson and experiencing Zaporizhzhia under drone attack, she imagined the Russo-Ukrainian war spreading West.
The book launched at Belfast’s Out to Lunch Festival in January.
Broadcasts
Michael Abbensetts’ (1938-2016) 1979 play Alterations opens at the National Theatre on 20 February 2025, with additional material by Trish Cooke.
It will be the largest ever staging of the piece from the Black Plays Archive. Directed by Lynette Linton, the reinvigorated version of this seminal work, which tells the story of 24 hours in Walker Holt’s tailor’s shop, illuminates the Guyanese experience of 1970s London, and the aspirations and sacrifices of the Windrush generation.
Find out more and book tickets on the National Theatre website.
Diane Samuels’ new play As Long As We Are Breathing runs at Arcola Theatre throughout February.
Directed by Ben Caplan, the play uses live music, audio and video footage, personal testimony and physical theatre to create a multi-sensory, mixed media evocation of the life story of Miriam Freedman, from her childhood experiences in Slovakia during the Holocaust to her journey to London, where she discovered yoga and meditation which enabled her to face and the depths of her trauma and grief. Buy tickets here.
Productions
Marcy Kahan’s comedy about nuclear science and opera Fusion Confidential is repeated on BBC Radio 4 this month.
The production stars Cecilia Appiah as young physicist Jane, who achieves a sustained fusion reaction by bombarding a flask of deuterated acetone with the arias and choruses of Verdi and Puccini. She confides in her opera-singer flatmate Elvira (Charlotte Ritchie), who realises her brilliant, idealistic friend will need to be protected from all the vested interests out in the world. Tamara Ustinov also stars.
Directed by Emma Harding. Listen live at 3pm on 1 February, or on BBC Sounds.
Events and appearances
Rebecca Watts launched her third poetry collection, The Face in the Well (Carcanet), with a reading at Heffers bookshop in Cambridge last week.
Tickets for an online launch event, which is hosted by publishers Carcanet on 5 February, can be bought here.
Doug Johnstone is appearing at Granite Noir 2025’s Rockin’ With The Writers event at 11am on Sunday 23 February, alongside three of the other members of the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers music group – Mark Billingham, Luca Veste and Stuart Neville. The Granite Noir festival celebrates Scottish crime writing, Nordic Noir, and atmospheric Aberdeen.
They will be discussing their latest books, including the latest instalment of Doug’s much-loved crime fiction series, featuring the Skelf family.
Later that day, the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers will perform a set including songs by The Clash, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads and The Beatles at the Lemon Tree, part of the Aberdeen Performing Arts cultural hub. In the absence of regular lead vocalist and Queen of Crime Val McDermid, the band will be performing as the same fun lovin’ five-piece that rocked Glastonbury last summer.
Awards
Judith Allnatt’s flash fiction story War Bride, shortlisted for the Edinburgh Flash Fiction Award, is now available to read on the Scottish Arts Trust website. You can find it here.
Prize-winners will be revealed during the Flash Bash at the Scottish Arts Club in Edinburgh on Saturday 22 February and ‘War Bride’ will be published in Edinburgh Anthologies Volume 2 in November 2025.
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