Author of most anticipated UK novel of 2018 is star billing at next City Writes

Very excited to announce that Imogen Hermes Gowar, a former City short course student, will be star billing at the next City Writes event in March. Imogen's debut novel, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock has been picked as the 'most anticipated book of 2018' by. amongst others, Vogue, Sunday Times, Observer, The Times, Sunday Mirror, Daily Express, BBC Arts, Red Magazine, Stylist, The Pool, Emerald Street, Independent, The Herald, Irish Times, Irish Tatler, The Journal and Irish Independent. The novel sparked a bidding war with ten publishers, a war finally won by Harville Secker for a six figure sum. 

Imogen was inspired with the idea for the novel while working at the British Museum as a Gallery Assistant. In the evenings she attended creative writing classes at City, taking Novel Writing and Longer Works and then Writers’ Workshop, both taught by Katy Darby. She went on to study for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, for which she received a distinction and won the Curtis Brown award for her year.

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is due out later this month and has been chosen as Harville Secker’s lead debut fiction title for 2018. Congratulations, Imogen!