Literature: Valerie O’Riordan speaks to three debut authors at Blackwell’s

This Thursday Blackwell’s on University Green will be welcoming three debut novelists on three of the most interesting independent publishers in operation. Bristol Short Story Prize winner Valerie O’Riordan will be introducing and speaking to the writers SK Perry, Amy Arnold, and Glen James Brown. Perry’s first novel, Let Me Be Like Water, out on Melville Press, is a book that focuses in on loneliness and friendship, the connections made and their everyday nature. Booker Prize nominee Fiona Morley has described the Croydon writer’s debut as ‘a beautiful reflection on love, grief, and friendship.’
Amy Arnold will be presenting her winner of the 2018 Northern Book Prize, A Slip Of A Fish, on & Other Stories, which is a portrait of motherhood, loss, and love. The TLS described it as ‘a strange and original novel’ from the writer who started off studying neuropsychology. Making up the trio, is Parthian published Ironopolis, a novel from Glen James Brown that spans generations and decades as an ageless myth of a woman stalks another two. The most local of the three, Brown’s novel has been called the ‘most accomplished working-class novel of the last few years’ which is sure to go down with his neighbourhood audience. Tickets cost just £3 and get you a free glass of wine as well as money off the books on the night.
Thu 21 Mar, Blackwell’s Bookshop, University Green, 146 Oxford Road, M13 9GP. 6pm, £3, www.eventbrite.co.uk

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