Winners of City Writes Competition to share stage with author Harriet Tyce

Ben O’Donnell Bourke

Delighted to hear the recent announcement of this term’s City Writes competition.

Ursula Hirschkorn, current student on The Novel Studio

Congratulations to Ursula Hirschkorn for her story 'Summer Time'; Jake Leyland for his non-fiction piece 'Portrait of a Technician in a War Zone'; Ben O'Donnell Bourke for his story 'Negative Habits'; Harriet Pavey for her story 'Dad' and Stephanie Pride for her story 'The best way to a man's mind is through his stomach'.  

City Writes is a termly event that showcases the best of City's Short Courses Creative Writing talent, hosting readings from alumni, students and tutors. Winners share the stage with a published alumni or tutor. This term it’s the turn of Harriet Tyce whose debut psychological thriller, Blood Orange, was published earlier this year to great acclaim.  

For your chance to hear Harriet read from her novel, alongside the five brilliant winners, tickets for the event are available here. 

And for anybody wanting to join City’s flagship Novel Studio programme, the deadline for applications is fast approaching. More details here, including information about their literary agent competition and the Novel Studio scholarship, set up by Harriet Tyce.

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Fiction to look out for in 2019

2018 was a phenomenal year for The Book Edit and City’s short course alumni with highlights being Hannah Begbie's Mother, winner of Joan Hessayon Romantic Novelist’s award, Fern Britton’s first pick for Tesco Book Club, Film rights sold to Clerkenwell Films; Peng Shepherd's The Book of M, Amazon’s best sci-fi books of 2018, The Guardian’s best recent sci-fi 2018, Esquire’s best sci-fi 2018, shortlisted Best Fantasy Good Reads Awards 2018, Amazon’s best 100 books 2018; R.K. Salters' Butterfly Ranch, winner of Rubery award for fiction 2018 and a Chill with a Book award, shortlisted People’s Book Prize 2018...

2019 shows no sign of slowing down. Two to look out for this year: the eagerly anticipated psychological thriller, Blood Orange, debut novel from Harriet Tyce, already listed amongst debuts to watch in The Observer, Cosmopolitan, The Sun, The Sunday Express and The Express;

and Luiza Sauma’s second novel, Everything You Ever Wanted about the modern condition and our ‘age of anxiety’ set on a perfect parallel planet. Both are brilliant writers with big futures and we can’t wait to see their books make their way into the world.

City Writes Fiction Competition

This autumn City Writes opens its doors once again with a writing competition open to all past and present City Writing Short Course Students. Submit by 17 November to win a chance to read alongside City short course alumnus Greg Keen, whose debut crime novel, Soho Dead, came out in July. Set up and run by The Book Edit's very own Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone, the next City Writes event will be held on 13 December and is well worth attending, even if you don't win the competition! Tickets available here.