The Lit Fest Newsletter
I slightly different newsletter this month, i thought it would good to give some space to one of the wonderful freelance book PR people that do so much to help make festivals great. Just as i was having this thought an email arrived in my inbox from Dusty Miller, whom i have known for a worryingly long amount of time!
Dusty has worked in arts PR and Marketing for the last three decades. Previously she was Communications and Events Director for Pan Macmillan, and before that Marketing Manager at Faber and Faber. She has run campaigns for Adam Kay, Tony Robinson, Vivienne Westwood, David Olusoga, Scarlett Moffatt, Richard Wiseman, Amy Poehler, The School of Life and Louis Theroux. She is also one of the founding board members of the Stoke Newington Literary Festival where she helps curate their fantastic programme.
Dusty is also working with the Forward Arts Foundation on the Forward Poetry Prizes and National Poetry Day so she’d love to hear about events with the shortlisted poets or poetry events on National Poetry Day (7 October 2021) with a view to promoting via their channels and working together on press.
Do get in touch if you’d like to hear more about any of her authors and their books, or would like to chat poetry via dustymillerpr@gmail.com
So Dusty what are you working on at the moment that you think would work for literary festivals?
Ben Pester has just launched his short story collection Am I in the Right Place? His writing is strange and funny - surreal takes on the worlds of work and family. We have brilliant endorsements from Wendy Erskine, Evie Wyld, Ross Raisin, Chris Power and Irenosen Okojie. It had a great review in the Observer and Granta are fans. His degree was in Drama and that really comes through in his readings – he’s a talented performer as well as a writer to watch.
Day for Night is by Jean McNeil, out at the end of June. Jean is Professor of Creative Writing at University of East Anglia and so, of course, has taught lots of the new generation of contemporary writers. She is the author of 14 books of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and travel. Her latest revolves around a film director and his producer wife as they make a film on the life of Walter Benjamin on the run from the Nazis in 1940, whilst Brexit is plays out. So lots of ways into discussing writing in real time and history as it happens, about film making and writing, about the impact of leaving the EU on the arts and on identity. I’ve worked with Jean before on Ice Diaries - an amazing nonfiction account of her time as writer in residence in the Antarctic - and she’s really thoughtful, generous and clever.
Another author I think the autumn festivals will absolutely love is Gail Muller - her book Unlost: A Journey of Self-Discovery and the Healing Power of the Wild Outdoors is out in September and is a very festival friendly story of overcoming 15 years of chronic pain and invisible disability to become an adventurer, hiking the great trails of America and closer to home. She’s a young, female, Cornish Bill Bryson and absolutely lovely to boot - with a rapidly growing following on social and perfect for media too.
And two more for September - in Rice & Peas and Fish & Chips, Pauline Campbell delivers a highly personal account of aspiration and the effects of racism on an immigrant family spanning politics, education and law. As a child she dreamed of becoming a lawyer but was told at the age of 15 that she was not ‘A’ level material. In her early thirties, she began to gain a sense of belief in herself and at the age of 41 qualified as a lawyer. She is now Supervising Lawyer on The Windrush Justice Clinic, providing free legal advice for victims of the Windrush scandal.
Valentine Carter’s fierce debut novella These Great Athenians: Retold Passages for Seldom Heard Voices gives voice to the mostly forgotten and maligned female characters of Homer’s epic The Odyssey. It is a celebratory ode to those who survive within and outside of gender norms. Would be a great pairing with another author reimagining classic texts.
I would love to repeat this exercise so if there are any other literary PR folk that would like their current roster shared with the 100 or so festivals that subscribe to BookAmp drop me a line at mathew@bookamp.co.uk.
Thanks everyone for reading.
Mathew