2018 in Books and Spoken Word

With several awards for Bristol writers and publishers, and an ever-expanding events schedule, 2018 has been a dynamic year for the city’s books and spoken word scene. Here are some of the highlights.

The year began with the announcement of Helen Dunmore as the posthumous winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award, one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes. The Bristol writer, who died in June 2017, was awarded the prize for her poetry collection, Inside the Wave.

Star of the year has got to be Nikesh Shukla who produced at least a decade’s worth of work over the last 12 months. He had no less than three books published: a novel The One Who Wrote Destiny, a co-authored book on race and racism for young people, What is Race, Who are Racists?, and Run Riot, a Young Adult novel which has been shortlisted for a number of awards including the Specsavers National Book Award YA category. He also wrote regular columns for The Observer, and popular website, The Pool; spoke, read and performed at numerous events, and commissioned and edited The Good Immigrant USA which will be published in 2019. On top of all this he launched a new literary agency and quarterly journal, demonstrating his steadfast commitment to helping those from marginalised communities to get published.

The year was full of well received novels from Bristol writers. Imogen Hermes Gowar’s big selling debut, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, was shortlisted for the high profile Women’s Prize for Fiction and The Sunday Times Peters Fraser and Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. Emily Koch enjoyed great reviews for her gripping debut novel, If I Die Before I Wake, and there were other excellent first novels from Heather Child, Katy Mahood and Tanya Atapattu.

Thriller writers C.L. Taylor and Sanjida Kay continued to enjoy big success with new novels. Amanda Prowse had her 25th book in just 6 years published, with total worldwide sales of over six million copies. And Jill Mansell delighted her millions of readers with a new novel in the summer.

Gareth L Powell brought out the first part of a new science fiction trilogy for his growing fan base, a moving graphic novel by Benjamin Dickson was published, and there were other notable new works of fiction from Anna Freeman, Jane Shemilt, Gilly Macmillan, Jari Moate, Mike Manson, Christopher Wakling, Pete Sutton, Stefan Mohamed and Freya Morris.

Rebecca Pert, a Bristol University librarian, won the inaugural Cheltenham Literature Festival First Novel competition for her unpublished work, Goodbye Horses. The novel will now be published by prestigious HarperCollins imprint, The Borough Press, and Rebecca has also been signed by a literary agent.

In non-fiction, David Olusoga’s Civilisations: First Contact / The Cult of Progress which accompanied the major BBC series, gave readers a valuable insight into the shared histories of many nations.

Lia Leendertz enjoyed a significant hit with her seasonal guide, Almanac, and gained a monthly slot on Cerys Matthews’ Sunday BBC6 music show. Jane Duffus put together a fascinating 900-year spanning history, The Women Who Built Bristol, which looked at the women who helped to shape Bristol into the vibrant city it is today. Elsewhere, Colin Moody’s photography book on Stokes Croft and a street art volume from popular and influential artist John D’oh captured the city’s creative sensibility. And Paul Sng’s Invisible Britain, published by Bristol University’s Policy Press, featured untold stories from people left behind by austerity and de-industrialisation. Multimedia publisher No Bindings, brainchild of Lily Green, continued providing inventive ways for underrepresented communities to be published.

There were new children’s books from Amy Wilson, Joe Berger, Yasmeen Ismail and a major prize for Virginia Bergin, who won the US-based Tiptree Award for her Young Adult novel, Who Runs the World?

Mark Lemon won the Junior Magazine Bronze Award for Best Designed/Illustrated Book with his picture book, The Magical Wood, which was written to help children deal with the loss of a family member or friend.

Children’s publisher, Book Island, secured major EU funding and Ruth Bradford of the Little Black and White Book Project received several accolades. She was the recipient of a Junior Design Award, a SmallBiz Saturday Award and winner of the Enterprise Nation Female Startup of the Year for her animal-based books, flash cards and prints for babies.

Despite the closure of poetry development organisation, Poetry Can, Bristol’s poetry and spoken word scene continued to pulsate with enormous energy. Burning Eye continued their prolific output as they published collections from many of the UK’s most exciting poets, and were once again shortlisted for a Saboteur Award.

There were new collections from many Bristol poets including Lucy English, Ben Banyard, Samantha Walton, Claire Williamson, Melanie Branton and Isadora Vibes. There were excellent anthologies produced by, amongst others, Lunar Poetry Podcasts, and Lyrically Justified, the latter featuring Bristol favourites including Lawrence Hoo, Miles Chambers and Rebecca Tantony.  New Tangent Books poetry imprint, Small Books, joined a growing list of poetry publishers in the city, including the aforementioned Burning Eye, plus Sad Press, Arkbound, Hesterglock and Moot Press.

Vanessa Kisuule was announced as the new City Poet, and Maggie Rigg published a collection of poetry, Spillweir, to raise awareness about Cerebral Palsy. Birdspeed broadcasted a poem a day for Black History Month, to celebrate black British historical figures.

Live poetry and spoken word continued to go from strength to strength in 2018. Regular nights such as Milk, Raise the Bar (who celebrated their 4th birthday), Hammer & Tongue, Satellite of Love, Bristol Poetry Institute and Blahblahblah were joined by a host of new ventures including That’s What She Said, Salon Soirées, Tonic, and Lines of the Mind. Local, national and international performers came to Bristol with stand-out performances from Raymond Antrobus, Joelle Taylor, Alice Oswald and Danez Smith to name just a few – the latter appearing at Arnolfini the day after winning the prestigious Forward Prize.

The Festival of Ideas continued to programme events on an epic scale throughout the year, bringing writers, journalists, academics and more from all over the world to the city to discuss and debate the most important issues of the age. It remains one of the UK’s most high profile and significant literary festivals, thanks to the unstinting dedication and vision of Andrew Kelly and Zoe Steadman-Milne.

Bristol Women’s Literature Festival, produced by Sian Norris, presented an inspiring and thought provoking weekend despite the best efforts of the snowclad Beast from the East. Bristol Festival of Literature hosted a wide variety of events over 10 days including Sufi poetry at Easton Jamia Mosque, an evening of Crime fiction in the old Bridewell police cells, and collaborations with Bristol regulars such as Novel Nights and Talking Tales.

The first outing for a new children’s festival took place at Horfield Primary School, and BristolCon hosted another successful festival for science fiction and fantasy devotees. Spike Island continued to welcome excellent debut novelists to their Novel Writers series of events, with Man Booker longlisted and shortlisted writers very much to the fore, including Sophie Mackintosh, Guy Gunaratne and Fiona Mozley.

While Bristol’s libraries face an uncertain future, as they do nationally, the city’s library service was alive with activity in 2018. Polly Ho-Yen at the Central Library programmed numerous events as well as the Thursday Lunchtime Lectures. While Friends groups in Marksbury Road, Redland, Wick Road and elsewhere demonstrated the importance of these public spaces to local communities.

Two new independent bookshops and a new Waterstones opened within a few months of each other. Regent Street in Clifton welcomed the new Waterstones, while the site of the old Durdham Down bookshop in Henleaze became home to Max Minerva’s bookshop. The last of the new arrivals was Storysmith on North Street in Southville. All three have been hosting great events already, and this massive increase in bookselling options is great news for Bristol readers and writers.

In a further sign of Bristol’s increasing importance to the modern publishing industry, Words of Colour, a creative communications agency that develops, facilitates and promotes writers of colour, expanded into the city. This followed the setting up of The Good Literary Agency by 2018’s MVP, Nikesh Shukla and literary agent Julia Kingsford earlier in the year.

And the year ended as it began, with a prestigious prize. Visionary publisher, Sharmaine Lovegrove, was named FutureBook Person of the Year by The Bookseller magazine for her ground-breaking work on inclusivity and breaking down barriers in the world of books.

Read more: Interview with Nikesh Shukla

Main image clockwise from left to right: Nikesh Shukla, Emily Koch, Gareth L Powell, Vanessa Kisuule, Lia Leendertz, Stefan Mohamed, Lucy English, David Olusoga