Category: Alumni News

MSt alumna Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s novel The Mercies has been published in the UK & the US. From the UK announcement (Picador):

“The Sunday Times Bestseller
‘A gripping novel . . . Beautiful and chilling’ – Madeline Miller, author of Circe

Inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm of 1617, The Mercies is a story about how suspicion can twist its way through a community, and a love that may prove as dangerous as it is powerful.

On Christmas Eve, 1617, the sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardø is thrown into a reckless storm. As Maren Magnusdatter watches, forty fishermen, including her father and brother, are lost to the waves – the menfolk of Vardø wiped out in an instant.

Vardø is now a place of women.

Eighteen months later, a sinister figure arrives. Summoned from Scotland to take control of a place at the edge of the civilized world, Absalom Cornet knows what he needs to do to bring the women of Vardø to heel. With him travels his young wife, Ursa. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa finds something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place flooded with a terrible evil, one he must root out at all costs . . .

BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick 2020

A gripping novel inspired by a real-life witch hunt. Hargrave’s prose is visceral and immersive; the muddy, cold life and politics of a fishing village leap to vivid life. But her most vital insights are about the human heart: how terrifyingly quickly prejudices can turn into murder, and how desperately we need love and courage to oppose it. Beautiful and chilling

Madeline Miller, author of Circe

This is a powerful story that gathers ever more momentum as it moves towards its conclusion

Sunday Times

A book for our times . . . Millwood Hargrave is a whirlwind, storm-building talent

Daisy Johnson, Man Booker Prize shortlisted author of Everything Under”

Announcement from the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre and ignition Press:

“The Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre is delighted to announce the publication of three new ignitionpress poetry pamphlets:

City Poems by Mia KangHush by Majella KellyHinge by Alycia Pirmohamed
We will be launching them next week at the Poetry Cafe in London on Thursday 20 February from 7pm and on Friday 21 February at Waterstones Oxford from 6.30pm. Mia will be appearing via video link, but Alycia and Majella will be there in person! You will also be able to find us at the Poetry Book Fair in London on Saturday 22 February.
We’d love to see you at one of these launches! Please sign up for free tickets via Eventbrite here.

You can read samples of their work on the Poetry Centre website and hear them read from their pamphlets here. They will be available to buy online from the Brookes Shop this Friday.

Majella Kelly is an Irish writer from Tuam, Co. Galway who won the 2019 Strokestown International Poetry Competition. Last year she was also shortlisted for the inaugural Brotherton Prize at Leeds University and her poems will be published by Carcanet in a Brotherton anthology. Her poetry and short fiction has been published in such places as The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, Southword, Ambit and Best New British & Irish Poets 2017. She holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford.”

MSt alumna Kiran Millwood Hargrave will be in conversation with fellow alumna Daisy Johnson at Blackwells in Oxford, 8th Feb 2020. They will be talking about Kiran’s new novel, The Mercies.

From the announcement:

“‘A gripping novel inspired by a real-life witch hunt . . . Beautiful and chilling’ Madeline Miller, author of Circe

On Christmas Eve, 1617, the sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardø is thrown into a reckless storm. As Maren Magnusdatter watches, forty fishermen, including her father and brother, are lost to the waves, the menfolk of Vardø wiped out in an instant.

Now the women must fend for themselves.

Eighteen months later, a sinister figure arrives. Summoned from Scotland to take control of a place at the edge of the civilized world, Absalom Cornet knows what he needs to do to bring the women of Vardø to heel. With him travels his young wife, Ursa. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa finds something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God and flooded with a mighty and terrible evil, one he must root out at all costs.

Inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm and the 1621 witch trials, Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Mercies is a story about how suspicion can twist its way through a community, and a love that may prove as dangerous as it is powerful.

Kiran Millwood Hargrave is an award-winning poet, playwright, and novelist. Her bestselling works for children include The Girl of Ink & Stars, and have won numerous awards including, the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year, and the Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Year, and been shortlisted for prizes such as the Costa Children’s Book Award and the Blue Peter Best Story Award. The Mercies is her first novel for adults. Kiran lives by the river in Oxford, with her husband, artist Tom de Freston, and their rescue cat, Luna.

Daisy Johnson’s debut short-story collection, Fen, was published in 2016. In 2018 she became the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize with her debut novel Everything Under which was also the Blackwell’s Book of the Year. She is the winner of the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize, the A. M. Heath Prize and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She currently lives in Oxford by the river and once worked as a Bookseller at Blackwell’s.

This is a free event, but please do register if you plan on attending. Please be aware that this event will take place in the Philosophy Department, which is accessible by a small flight of stairs. Seating is unallocated. For more information, please call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.”

Booking and further information here.