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RLF Writers’ News: November 2025

Publishing

Vitali Vitaliev’s new book, Atlas of Geographical Curiosities: Britain, is published on 3 November. 

A compendium of geographical anomalies confirming Britain as one the quirkiest parts of the world, it is the 17th book from the acclaimed author, geographer, and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain.

Curiosities featured include a British hotel room which became Yugoslavian for one day only, the only bit of Britain’s territory still adhering to the Julian calendar, a county that does not exist but still features in postal addresses, and Britain’s own Great Barrier Reef.

Katharine Quarmby’s novel, The Low Road, is out in paperback from Eye Books on 6 November.

Shortlisted for the New Angle Prize 2025, The Low Road tells the true story of a young woman from Katharine’s hometown in Norfolk who was transported to Australia in the 1820s. Drawing on these real events, it is a gripping, atmospheric tale that brings to life the forgotten voices of the past – convicts, servants, the rural poor – as well as a moving evocation of love that blossomed in the face of prejudice and ill-fortune.

Katherine Clements’ novella, Turbine 34, is published on 6 November. A hallucinatory folk horror perfect for the darkening autumn nights, it is the final instalment in the Northern Weird Project from Wild Hunt Books.

Inspired by a real-life proposed wind farm in the North of England, Turbine 34 follows an unnamed environmental scientist tasked with evaluating the impact of a controversial new wind farm on the West Yorkshire moors. Camped out alone by the base of Turbine 34 – the most remote of the new turbines, built on an ancient peat bog – she spends her days gathering samples. But when she discovers signs of the devastation caused by the construction, she begins to see things – things that shouldn’t be there…

Emma Darwin’s new novel, The Bruegel Boy, is published on 6 November by Holland House Books: 

In the summer of 1566 an inferno of political rebellion and image-smashing, the Beeldenstorm, swept across Flanders and Holland; young Gillis Vervloet, model and muse to artist Pieter Bruegel, almost didn’t survive. Sixty years later, in the Saarland forest, Gil wants only to enter the monastery of St Bartolomëus and live out his days in peace, but first he must find their long-lost statue of St Michael. To prove he is not a heretic, Gil must also account for his life with Bruegel to save himself from the Inquisition.

Darwin will be discussing her new novel The Bruegel Boy at the Author’s Club on 19 November and taking part in a Zoom Masterclass on How to Write Historical Fiction with Sanjida O’Connell on 26 November.

Ann Morgan’s new book, Relearning to Read: Adventures in Not-Knowing, is out now, and will be launched at Veranda Books in London on 6 November.

Drawing on an approach to reading developed over more than a decade of interactions with stories and book-lovers around the world through the author’s hit blog A Year of Reading The World, the book puts not-knowing centre stage and plays with what examining the gaps in our understanding and the assumptions we use to plug them can teach us about ourselves and our world.

Morgan will also be discussing Relearning to Read at Creative Folkestone Book Festival on 22 November as part of the Radical Reading event with Daisy Buchanan. For tickets, visit the Creative Folkestone website.

Rosemary Jenkinson’s playscript, Manichea: A Play on Cancellation, is published by Arlen House on 15 November.

Based on Jenkinson’s experience of having a novel cancelled by a publisher, Manichea is set in a Dublin publishing house across two different historical eras, comparing comparing modern-day cancel culture with the censorship of 1960s Ireland. 

Productions

Flight, Oliver Emanuel’s unique immersive stage adaptation of Caroline Brothers’ novel Hinterland for theatre company Vox Motus, will be at the iconic Citizens’ Theatre in Glasgow for a limited run from 6 November, as part of their grand reopening after a major refurbishment.

Combining unsettling themes with spellbinding images, Flight draws you into a fragile miniature world to follow the story of two orphaned brothers as they embark on a desperate odyssey to freedom and safety. Initially commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival in 2017 in association with the Beacon Arts Centre, this unique immersive experience has thrilled audiences in New York, London and across the world, collecting awards and critical acclaim internationally.

For tickets and more information, visit the Citisens’ Theatre website.

Broadcasts

WritersMosaic‘s new audio drama series Mosaic Monologues launched recently with Mara Menzies‘ Creation.

This month, listen out for stories from Connor Allen, Tahmina Ali, Shahid Iqbal Khan, Nabeela Ahmed and Testament.

Each episode will be released across podcast platforms, or you can listen to the full series – which was directed, edited and produced by John Siddique and Ishy Din – on the WritersMosaic website.

Collected Live panel events

There are two Collected Live panel events coming up in November:

• Peter Kalu, Pauline Rowe and Zoë Howe on inspiration, at Liverpool Central Library on Friday 7 November. Tickets here.
• Helen Kelly, Juliet Clare Bell and Leila Rasheed on motivation, at the Grounded Earth Café in Selley Oak, Birmingham on Thursday 13 November. Tickets here.

Awards

CD Rose’s latest novel We Live Here Now has been nominated for the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize which recognises fiction that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form”.

Judge Simon Okotie described We Live Here Now as: “A dizzying, encyclopaedic series of stories linked by texture, resonance and suggestion, We Live Here Now is a novel of immense scope and subtlety. Exploring the repercussions of twelve individuals’ involvement in a famous conceptual artist’s installation, it traces the invisible circuits and networks – of love, capital and war – that shape our contemporary lived experience.”

For more information and to see the full list of nominees, visit the Goldsmiths Prize website.

RLF Fellow Gillian Allnutt and WritersMosaic‘s Nick Makoha have both been shortlisted for this year’s prestigious TS Eliot Prize.

The winner of the 2025 TS Eliot Prize will be announced on Monday 19 January 2026.

WritersMosaic’s Salena Godden’s poetry collection With Love, Grief and Fury has been shortlisted in the Poetry Category of the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards, the only book awards curated by UK booksellers and readers.

For the full shortlist, which also includes fiction, non-fiction, Young Adult and children’s fiction, visit the National Book Tokens website.

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