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RLF Fellows’ News: July 2025

Publishing

Teresa Heapy’s first novel for children Will Wolfheart is out now. 

Illustrated by Adam Beer and published by David Fickling Books, Will Wolfheart follows the magical adventures of a boy called Will and his dog, Whisker, after they are summoned to an enchanted world… where Whisker becomes a WOLF.

You can buy the book now via Waterstones and other retailers.

Susan Fletcher’s latest book, The Night in Question will be published in paperback on 17 July by Penguin:

87-year-old Florence Butterfield has a secret. She’s kept it for 70 years and never told a soul. Until one midsummer’s night, something so terrible and unexpected happens that it changes everything…

Susan will be appearing at Waterstones in Stratford-upon-Avon on 17th July, where she will talk about The Night in Question and her work as a writer. For tickets, take a look at the Waterstones website.

Incoming RLF Fellow Thomas McMullan’s new novel Groundwater is published by Bloomsbury on 17 July, an atmospheric and powerfully menacing story about family, secrets and violence from a previous winner of the Betty Trask prize.

Poet Ella Frears describes Groundwater as: “So dreamlike and yet so tense – a heady combination beautifully balanced by McMullan. This is a novel that gets right under your skin.”

For more, visit thomasmcmullan.com.

Broadcasts

Rukhsana Ahmad is co-hosting The Next Act, a podcast series spotlighting the voices shaping the future of British South Asian theatre. Each episode centres on a conversation with a single playwright, examining their creative process alongside the political, personal, and artistic forces that inform their work.

Founder of Kali Theatre Rukhsana is joined by co-hosts Dr Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal and BBC broadcaster Shiroma Silva. Guests include Sonali Bhattacharyya, Neil D’Souza and RLF Fellow Satinder Chohan.

All episodes are available to stream for free on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or you can find them all here.

Productions

Satinder Chohan’s play Mia and the Fish, written for the National Theatre’s Connections 2025 festival season, was recently performed by pupils from Abbey Grange Academy in Leeds.

A modern retelling of the ancient Indian myth Manu and the Fish, the play follows Mia, a young refugee girl who is washed up onto the shores of the UK along with her sister. Against the backdrop of a freak winter heatwave and as the climate emergency becomes critical, Mia happens upon and nurtures a talking fish she names Samaki. As well as becoming Mia’s friend and confidante, Samaki quickly grows, larger than any marine animal the world has ever known and the key to her and her friends’ survival in the face of the imminent extinction of humanity. 

Mia and the Fish will also be published by NT Connections.

Babs Horton’s 2024 Edinburgh Fringe sell-out show In the Lady Garden is touring this July.

Described as a “hilarious, bold and unfiltered” feminist comedy, In the Lady Garden follows 69-year-old Alice as she tries to shake off the shackles of the patriarchy and live out the rest of her days with outrageous abandon.

The show is playing at Norwich Theatre on 19 July and the Barn Theatre at Sterts Arts on 26 July.

Awards

Andrew Miller has won the 2025 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction for The Land in Winter.

Honouring the achievements of the founding father of the historical novel, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes. The Land in Winter, which is set during the Great Freeze during the winter of 1962/3, only just fell within the Prize’s criteria, which states that novels must be set at least 60 years ago.

Having been shortlisted for the prestigious Prize on two previous occasions, Andrew Miller received the award at the Borders Book Festival from Matthew Maxwell Scott, the great-great-great-great grandson of Walter Scott and trustee of The Abbotsford Trust, which runs the Prize, alongside the Prize’s Founder the Duke of Buccleuch.

Sally Bayley and Jasbinder Bilan have been awarded Travelling Scholarships at the Society of Authors Awards.

Five Society of Authors Scholarships are awarded annually to British writers to enable engagement with writers abroad. The other 2025 winners are Marcus Field, Montenegro Fisher and Nathalie Olah.

Travelling Scholarships Judge Philip Terry said:

All writers need to travel, and the Travelling Scholarships help them do just that. It’s a particularly exciting prize, as there are no limits on the kind of work it supports.

Courttia Newland has been shortlisted for the 2025 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting with his play Trim Palace. 

Established in 2005, The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting is the largest playwriting competition in Europe and provides an opportunity for writers to enter unperformed plays anonymously, with scripts judged purely on the work alone and with no knowledge of the identity of the playwright. The winner will be announced on 21 July.

Find out more here.

Events and appearances

Anna Wilson, Andrew Miller and Susan Fletcher are all appearing at the Penzance Literary Festival, which runs from 1-5 July.

Anna Wilson’s Writers Workshop is on 1 July, Andrew Miller’s talk about The Land in Winter is on 2 July, and Susan Fletcher will be discussing The Night in Question, also on 2 July.

WritersMosaic returns to the British Library on 3 July for a night of prose and music, marking the centenary of the revolutionary psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, author of Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961).

Colin Grant will be joined by Ekow Eshun, author of The Strangers; psychotherapist and poet Clementine E Burnley; and the writer, filmmaker and consultant psychiatrist Khaldoon Ahmed. Donna Thompson will also be playing music from her latest EP.

WritersMosaic will present We Were There, a live event hosted by Bradford-born Lanre Bakare – author of groundbreaking social history, We Were There – and WritersMosaic  director Colin Grant at the Southbank Centre on 11 July.

They will joined by Leeds-based poet Malika Booker, co-founder of Malika’s Kitchen, to perform some of her latest poems; as well as Liverpudlian filmmaker Bea Freeman and singer Daudi Matsiko from Nottingham, who will be playing from his latest album, The King of Misery.

WritersMosaic are pleased to offer a 50% discount on tickets – just visit the Southbank Centre website and type in the promo code MOSAIC50 to claim your discount.

Throughout July and August, RLF writers Jim Beckett, Jasbinder Bilan, Maisie Chan, Teresa Heapy, Sophie Kirtley, Michael Mann, Amanda Swift, Sheena Wilkinson and Anna Wilson will be appearing at Hillsborough Castle and Gardens in County Down, Northern Ireland, sharing stories with young visitors as part of Disney and Historic Royal Palaces’ Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hunny Hunt.

For more information, see here.

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