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RLF Fellows’ News: May 2024

Publishing

RLF Fellow Tom Lee’s new book, The Bullet, his memoir about family and mental health, has recently been published by Granta Books:

Like many people, Tom Lee remembers the presence – somewhere out of sight, on the outskirts of town – of the local psychiatric hospital. It was a place that inspired jokes, rumours and dread, a place where the strange and deranged were kept away.

But among those people were, at different times, Tom’s own parents.

RLF Fellow Miranda France’s latest book, The Writing School, has been published in paperback by Hachette:

A delightful and unusual blend of storytelling and memoir, packed full of literary anecdote and insight from the author’s own experience as well as that of other writers and poets, The Writing School is a moving and often very funny book about why people write, as well as being a uniquely generous masterclass on the art of writing itself.

RLF Fellow Tiffany Murray’s latest book, My Family and Other Rock Stars, is published on 16 May by Fleet:

A memoir of growing up with a Cordon Bleu chef mother at the iconic recording studio Rockfield – where the chances of bumping into Freddie Mercury or David Bowie were as normal as hopscotch and homework – My Family and Other Rock Stars is a love letter to a remarkable childhood. To the music that shaped it and to the two people who watched over it. Enchanting and unique.

Events and Appearances

Tiffany Murray will be discussing My Family and Other Rock Stars at a number of festivals and events over the coming weeks, including:

• • • The Fowey Festival in Cornwall on 12 May, where she will be in conversation with Patrick Gale
    • The Yellow Lighted Bookshop in Nailsworth on 13 May
    • Mr B’s Emporium in Bath on 14 May 
    • The Edinburgh Bookshop in Edinburgh on 20 May
    • Book-ish in Crickhowell, Powys, on 22 May
    • The Hay Festival, alongside fellow memoirist Dylan Jones, on 1 June

RLF Fellow Doug Johnstone is appearing at the Ulluminate Festival, a new festival celebrating science, arts and culture in and around Ullapool, on 11 May. Doug, a nuclear physicist turned author of sixteen best-selling science-fiction and crime novels, will be in conversation with LG Thomson and Dr Howie Firth, Director of the original Edinburgh Science Festival and Director of Orkney International Science Festival.

The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. Photo by Alan Veste.

Doug Johnstone will also be appearing at Perth Festival of the Arts alongside a super-group of writer/musicians, The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, which also includes Mark Billingham, Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Luca Veste and Stuart Neville.

You can see this group of writers happily murdering much-loved songs by The Clash, The Beatles, Talking Heads, The Jam and many others on 30 May at Perth Theatre. You can book tickets here to see them at Perth here.

The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers are also set to play The Capital Crime Festival on 1 June, at Leonardo Royal in St Paul’s, London. The 9pm gig will follow Doug Johnstone‘s afternoon appearance in From Space to the Psychological, a discussion on the universal appeal of thrillers which also features Luca Veste, Becca Day and participating moderator.

Awards

Broadcasts

RLF Fellow Nicola Baldwin’s two-part crime thriller Camberwell Green will be repeated on BBC Radio 4 from 16 May and is also available on BBC Sounds.

Set against the backdrop of Covid and its impact upon London’s key workers, Camberwell Green follows a bus controller who must protect her drivers and their passengers when they become trapped by a demonstration, while her husband is held hostage by criminals demanding a safe route through the city. Directed by Celia de Wolff with a cast including Chizzy Akudolu and Michelle Greenidge.

RLF Fellow Horatio Clare’s BBC Radio 4 travelogue Night Train is now available on BBC Sounds.

“In literature and film, night trains are the setting for intrigue and romance, espionage, and sudden death. And in real life too they’re places of possibility and the expectation of new adventures.”

Horatio Clare boards a train to Vienna for a night-time journey across Europe and into the archives to explore night trains of decades past. Produced by Jeremy Grange for BBC Radio Wales.

RLF Fellow Bernie McGill’s latest short story At Heart Centre is a BBC Short Works original commission, recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

“It’s been years since Stella went to yoga. Fifty-eight years, to be exact…”

Read by Seána Kerslake and directed by Michael Shannon, At Heart Centre is a BBC Audio Northern Ireland production for BBC Radio 4.

The second series of RLF Fellow Sue Teddern’s romantic 1960s comedy serial, Cooking In A Bedsitter, inspired by Katherine Whitehorn’s classic cookbook, is being repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Directed by Emma Harding, it stars Beattie Edmondson and Nikesh Patel with extracts from Cooking in a Bedsitter recipes read by Eleanor Bron.

RLF Fellows can submit their news to us via the Contact Us page.

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