{"id":2668,"date":"2015-07-29T21:39:55","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T21:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/?p=2668"},"modified":"2015-07-29T21:39:55","modified_gmt":"2015-07-29T21:39:55","slug":"the-black-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/?p=2668","title":{"rendered":"The Black Country"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kerry's
Kerry’s Novel: The Black Country<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Manchester Metropolitan University MA\u00a0is apparently ‘the most successful writing programme available in the UK today in terms of students and graduates achieving publication’ (according to the Manchester Writing School website<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

And who am I to disagree? Not only am I a graduate of the course but I’m delighted that one of the novels that our group workshopped during the first two years of the course is now almost ready for publication.<\/p>\n

While I’ve got to know many published writers, this is the first time I’ll have seen text that was e-mailed around in Word files for us to comment on become transmuted through that still magical process into a ‘proper book’ — and what a fantastic cover Kerry’s publishers, Salt, have come up with.<\/p>\n

It’s a while now since those workshopping parts of the course and I’m sure the text has changed substantially through the editing and publication process but I’ve seen and commented on a large part of (what was at the time) the opening of the novel. And on that basis I can thoroughly recommend Kerry’s excellent writing (see this blog post<\/a> from last year)..<\/p>\n

It’s certainly a story\u00a0that grabs the reader and sucks you in as the events in the novel\u00a0turn from ordinary to sinister — and I’m as keen to find out how the narrative\u00a0ends as anyone. Unless the novel has changed substantially then the narrator is as intriguing as any of the other characters.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Vine (or Bull and Bladder), Brierley Hill (with assorted revellers)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kerry lives in the Black Country — I’ve even had a drink with her in one of the area’s legendary pubs, the Vine (or Bull and Bladder in Brierley Hill). As far as I remember the novel was untitled when we first started to workshop it and I’m not even sure if it had a precisely-defined setting at the time.<\/p>\n

I went to Birmingham University as an undergraduate and some of Kerry’s writing reminded me of the near apocalyptic, post-industrial landscapes my train used to pass on the way there between Wolverhampton and Birmingham. It’s all been cleaned up now (mostly) but we exchanged comments about how\u00a0the waterways that thread through the West Midlands still give the area a sense of sinister melancholy — and this seemed to also be captured by\u00a0Kerry’s writing style.<\/p>\n

So for many reasons, The Black Country is\u00a0an excellent title for the novel — both geographically and psychologically – and I’m really looking forward to reading the end of the story that I was lucky enough to read as it was being developed.<\/p>\n

I’d have said that I’d have ordered my copy from a huge, rather market-dominating website (from where it’s listed and available) but I’m hoping to buy\u00a0a copy and see if I can get Kerry to personalise it, possibly at a launch event.<\/p>\n

It’s always fascinated me that one of the fundamental attributes of a book is the immutable, unalterable nature of the words on the page compared to when a draft is sent round for comment on a course or in a writing group when it’s usually in a word-processing file that is fluid and designed to be changed. To go from Word file to typeset book is a the fundamental transition and I can’t wait to see the words printed in finalised form that were once submitted for discussion in our MA workshopping group.<\/p>\n

The Black Country<\/em> is available for pre-order now from all the usual suspects. I’ll update the blog with news of any launch events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Manchester Metropolitan University MA\u00a0is apparently ‘the most successful writing programme available in the UK today in terms of students and graduates achieving publication’ (according to the Manchester Writing School website). And who am I to disagree? Not only am I a graduate of the course but I’m delighted that one of the novels that … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Black Country”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1052,56],"tags":[758,1198,608,484,1261,1200,1199],"class_list":["post-2668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-writing-courses","category-publishing","tag-mmu","tag-kerry-hadley-price","tag-ma-creative-writing","tag-manchester-metropolitan-university","tag-publishing","tag-salt-publishing","tag-the-black-country"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2668"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2671,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions\/2671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}