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RLF Fellows’ News: May 2025

Publishing

Tiffany Murray’s My Family and Other Rock Stars has been published in paperback.

Previously book of the year in The Sunday Times, the Guardian, Independent and Mail, My Family and Other Rock Stars is a memoir that takes the form of a letter to a remarkable childhood and the music that shaped it.

The book describes Tiffany’s young life, growing up with her mum – a Cordon Bleu chef – at the iconic recording studio Rockfield.

JB Priestley Award recipient Adam Weymouth’s book, Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultines of Europe, has been published by Penguin Random House.

Adam, who is also a previous winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, received the RLF’s JB Priestley Award three years ago.

Lone Wolf follows Adam as he in turn follows in the footsteps of a young Slovenian wolf named Slavc. Tracked by GPS, Slavc previously travelled a thousand miles through the Alps, arriving four months later on the Lessinian plateau, north of Verona. There had been no wolves in northern Italy for a century, but here he crossed paths with a female wolf on a walkabout of her own. A decade later and there are more than a hundred wolves back in the area. And as Adam walks Slavc’s path, he examines the unique changes facing these wild corners of Europe.

Lone Wolf is one of three non-fiction books recommended this month by RLF Fellow and Associate Editor of The Bookseller Caroline Sanderson, who calls it “a profound book”.

Gordon Meade‘s new book Beyond the Ninth Wave: Selected Poems has been published by Into Poetry, a new imprint of Into Creativity.

It contains poems chosen by Gordon, a celebrated Scottish poet, taken from his twelve previous collections as well as new poems covering subjects as diverse as the sea, nonhuman animals, and the poet’s experience of Stage Four Cancer.

Gordon is also a former RLF Grants beneficiary and has written about his writing process as part of our My Writing Life series.

Anna Woodford’s new poetry book Everything is Present is published on 12 May.

A mid-life coming of age tale that takes its title from a Buddhist meditation referring to the non-linear nature of time, poems in Everything is Present have won The Ledbury Competition, The Wigtown Prize, and were featured in The Forward Book of Poems of the Year.

The back to front narrative is divided into three sections – End, Middle and Beginning.  End focuses on the death of Anna’s mother on a locked-down ward during the Covid-19 pandemic and a grandfather who escaped from Nazi-occupied Lwów (then in Poland, now the Ukraine). Middle negotiates the shifting ground of middle age – exploring women’s bodies, work, therapy and the consolations of love and spirituality – while Beginning revisits youthful sex and running away from home.

Rosemary Jenkinson’s new collection of short stories, Laganside Lights, will be published on 19 May.

Her seventh collection is described as “brimming with peacemakers and warmongers, lovemakers and lawyers, artists and influencers – all human life is here colliding with kinetic verve. Jenkinson employs her legendary wit to peel back the layers of contemporary Belfast, illuminating the feverish desires, loneliness and pyrrhic triumphs of everyday existence”.

Published by Arlen House, Langanside Lights is being launched at No Alibis Bookshop, Belfast, in June.

Jim Beckett’s new book Buzz Sausage Wolf, illustrated by Aurelie Lise Ann, will be published by Hachette on 22 May.

The first in a new series for readers 6+, it tells the tale of Buzz Sausage Wolf – a dog who longs to win the love (and biscuits) of his New Family. He wants to be the perfect pet and impress them, but who is Pack Leader? Is it Britney, the small but shouty one? Her brother who secretly gives Buzz delicious and definitely not-for-dogs snacks? Or Mum, the one who holds The Lead? With the help of his wise friend, Trilby, Buzz must decide whether to be a silly Sausage or a brave Wolf to win their hearts – because too much of either ends in chaos!

Zoë Marriott‘s debut novel for adults, The Moonlit Maze, will be published by Headline Review on 5 June.

This dual timeline historical novel began life as the creative element of Zoë’s Creative Writing PhD on the timeslip genre.

Set in 1924 and 2024, it begins as Lord and Lady Kearsley’s daughter Xanthe slips out of the Orangery during a glittering Summer Ball for a secret encounter. A century later, Juliet Stewart inherits a cottage in the cliff-top village of Winterthorne from a relative she never knew existed. As she is drawn into Xanthe’s story, she discovers that danger lies not only in the past, but the present too.

Broadcasts

Ian McMillan will host a live recording of BBC Radio 4: The Adverb at Hay Festival on Friday 23 May.

Known as ‘The Barnsley Bard’, Ian McMillan will be joined by “a veritable paean of poets” for this showcase of the best live poetry and performance. His guests are Natalie Ann Holborow, Len Pennie, Michael Rosen and Alex Wharton.

Tickets are free – find out more here.

Productions

Lisa Parry’s new play Salem opens in Cardiff at the end of this month, before moving to The Young Vic in London in June:

‘Capel Salem, Gwynedd. In 2025, two Welsh nationalists hide out with ‘Salem’ – a painting they’ve stolen from a Liverpool art gallery to decolonise Welsh art. In 1908, Sydney Curnow Vosper paints, his vision disputed by its sitters. Is it possible to ever prescribe a work of art’s meaning?’

The Welsh production of Salem is produced by the Richard Burton Company at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama – one of Wales’ most prolific repertory companies – made up of actors, stage managers, theatre designers and musical theatre performers in their final year. It opens on Saturday 31 May and runs until 5 June. Details here.

Awards

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

Set during the Great Freeze of 1962-63, two couples, hemmed in by the snow in their rural cottages, are put to the test by isolation and the challenges set by the relentless cold. The farmer pursues an impossible dream for the future of his farm, while his wife huddles by the stove in their freezing cottage, tormented by voices from her past.

With a total value of over £30,000, and now in its sixteenth year, the Walter Scott Prize is unique for rewarding writing of exceptional quality which is set in the past. The six-strong Shortlist for the 2025 Prize was revealed by a treasure hunt at Abbotsford, home to the Prize and to Walter Scott himself. The winner will be announced at the Borders Book Festival in June.

RLF and WritersMosaic writers at this year’s Hay Festival

Andrew Miller and Clare Chambers will be at the Hay Festival on Sunday 25 May.

The two authors will be talking to Julia Wheeler about their most recent novels – Clare Chambers’ Shy Creatures and Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter, which are both set in the 1960s – as part of a panel event called Unordinary Lives.

Find tickets and information here.

On Monday 26 May Gwyneth Lewis talks to Harriett Gilbert at Hay Festival about her recent memoir, Nightshade Mother: A Disentangling.

A memoir about her painful upbringing at the hands of a coercive and controlling mother, Nightshade Mother sees inaugural National Poet of Wales Gwyneth Lewis return to her childhood diaries as she shares the story of her younger years, growing up in Welsh-speaking in Cardiff.

Gwyneth, who has also written two non-fiction books Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book on Depression and Two in a Boat: A Marital Voyage, was made an MBE in 2023 for services to literature and mental health. She will be talking to broadcaster and presenter Harriett Gilbert.

Tickets available here.

On Wednesday 28 May WritersMosaic – in partnership with the British Library – brings together writers Ekow Eshun, Bonnie Greer and Vanessa Kisuule along with WritersMosaic Director Colin Grant to explore the global legacy of resistance leader Malcolm X in this, his centenary year.

The Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary panel event will also feature music from Tony Njoku.

Tickets available here.

As the first national poet of Wales, Gwyneth Lewis will also join Connor Allen, Hanan Issa, Mike Parker and Bedwyr Williams for the panel event Wales and its Borders: Our National Story on Thursday 29 May.

The event will explore the rich national story of Wales and its dynamic relationship with the English borderlands, from medieval conflicts to modern-day connections.

Tickets available here.

On Friday 30 May, WritersMosaic Director Colin Grant will host a salon event inspired by panelist Lanre Bakare’s new book, We Were There, which challenges the metropolitan bias London has cast on other British towns and cities.

Pauline Black, Malika Booker and Daudi Matsiko will join Colin and Lanre to reflect on the under-reported cultural impact of Black people who have lived outside of London.

Tickets available here.

Other events and festivals

On Tuesday 6 May Dr Sue Roe will discuss her new book Hidden Portraits: The Untold Stories of Six Women Who Loved Picasso with biographer Michèle Roberts and novelist Louisa Tregern, as part of the Chipping Camden Literature Festival.

The panel event – Colette, The Paris Muse and Hidden Portraits – will be hosted by RLF Fellow Meg Sanders.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit the Chipping Campden festival website.

Syd Moore will talk about her recent novel The Grand Illusion for the DiscoveReads Festival in Ipswich on Saturday 24 May.

The Grand Illusion is set in June 1940. As World War Two rages, Daphne Devine remains in London, performing as assistant to stage magician Jonty Trevelyan, aka the Grand Mystique. Then the secret service call. Aware of Hitler’s belief in the occult, the war office has set up a hidden cohort to exploit this quirk in the enemy’s chain of command. Daphne and Jonty find themselves far from the glitz and glamour of the theatre, deep inside the lower levels of Wormwood Scrubs prison. They join secret ranks of occultists, surrealists, and other eccentrics co-opted to the war effort with one goal: to avert invasion on British shores.

Tickets available here.

On Wednesday 4 June Jill Dawson will discuss her work at the DiscoveReads Festival’s closing event.

As the author twelve novels – including The Crime Writer, about author Patricia Highsmith’s time living in Suffolk, which won the East Anglian book of the year; and The Language of Birds, about the nanny murdered at the home of Lord Lucan – Jill is an award-winning writer of historical fiction and also a journalist, travel writer, editor and teacher. Her latest novel, The Bewitching, is based on a true story from the 16th century about the witches of Warboys.

More information and tickets are available here.

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

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