C.J. Cooke's Blog

My box of finished copies of The Nesting arrived on Thursday and I am over the moon with how they look. Hard to believe that publication day is just one month away!! (2 weeks if you’re in the US!) I’m so excited for this book. It’s a slightly different genre to what I usually write, with a much more overt gothic slant, which I feel is very of the moment. I’m holding a giveaway right now on my Instagram page – the above images show the treats that are up for grabs, regardless of where you are based in the world – so do head over to my page and enter! Closing date is midnight (GMT) on 20th September.

Good luck!

The post The Nesting giveaway! appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

Man, what a whirlwind this year has been. My sense of time is all up the left – surely we can’t have had close calls with WWIII, the continent of Australia almost burned to a crisp and wiping out a billion animals and ancient forests, not to mention the floods, landslides, earthquakes – and now a global pandemic…. and only be in the third month of the year??

‘Apocalyptic’ can’t be the right word for the experience of queuing for an hour at Asda to buy a loaf of bread, all while keeping a two-meter distance from the people around you and whilst wearing gloves and a face mask that you hastily bought on eBay when word first began to trickle on to the internet about a nightmare unfolding in Wuhan, China. This reality is more than apocalyptic, precisely because it’s so real, and there isn’t the artifice of zombies or even narrative structure behind it.

But here we are.

I had already been participating in industrial action throughout much of February and March and was eager to get back to work. Striking is frustrating – it’s unpaid, it inevitably means much-loved projects and teaching gets shelved and the sense of letting my students down (supportive as they are) is pure misery. But then, I saw what was happening in China, and Italy, and I knew I wasn’t going back to work. I placed a relatively large Asda home delivery order, with extra flour and bottled water (not, as it happens, extra toilet roll), and started cancelling events, albeit reluctantly. I told my students I was going to be teaching them online – I wasn’t risking bringing a virus into my home. And then, our University followed by making all teaching happen online. Eventually – too long in the coming – the government ordered a lockdown.

On the 13th March, the Friday before I was due to return to teaching after the strikes and when I’d made the decision to move my teaching online, I posted an idea on Twitter about an online literary festival. My initial idea grew out of my feeling that literature always makes things better, precisely because it connects people. You feel less alone when you read – at least, I do, and I think many other people do, too. To me, a literary festival at such a surreal moment made sense.

I asked people to comment under the tweet if they were interested. LOTS of people commented, including some prominent authors, and I thought I’d maybe try and gather some of them together to do some things via Zoom, which is the platform I’ve been using for a couple of years to run the Distance Learning MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. And then Paper Nations dropped me a line about having a chat, and within a few days I was partnering with them to run something that I’d decided to call the Stay-At-Home! Literary Festival. I decided I’d hold it from 27th March until 11th April – a nice sweeping spread, as I already knew the virus – which wasn’t yet called a pandemic – wasn’t going anywhere. Plus, a fortnight of events would give me a chance to programme as many events as I could. Which turned out to be good thinking.

By the time I set up the festival twitter account, I had over a hundred authors signed up for events. The virus was officially recognised as a pandemic. I created a google doc that I was able to send out to interested writers, and they simply added to it. There were rumours of a lockdown, and calls for it. I had publicists from high-profile publishers contacting me, asking for a slot. The Telegraph asked for a press release. Like me, many authors had had events cancelled, and a lot of them – unlike me – had books coming out right when they needed to be out shouting about them. So the festival was, in a way, offering a means to promote new books as well as creating connectivity between readers.

The Prime Minster implemented a national lockdown on March 23rd, and told us all to ‘stay at home’ – 4 days before the Stay-At-Home! festival was due to start.

Putting together a literary festival involving 200+ authors and 130 events in just over a week means you don’t sleep very much, and you’re also running everywhere and you type very, very fast. You don’t respond to important emails or phone calls and you cram your day job into the wee hours and ignore your children, who you’ve pulled out of school days before the schools actually closed for fear of them catching the thing that is beginning to kill people around you. Also, it’s imperative that the festival cost nothing at all, because you’re worried now about money, even more than you usually worry about it, so you become exceptionally resourceful. You build a website for nothing, which you’ve never done before in your life, by which to promote the programme, mocking up a logo which someone more talented shapes into the final version. You muddle through the kind of PR strategies required to create noise about this kind of thing. You literally lose sleep over how you’re going to provide live captioning for hearing-impaired audience members, because Zoom doesn’t have it. You’re told to get a quote from a third party company, but it’s $18k. Impossible. You cry for a bit. But then someone mentions an app that provides accurate live captioning for free, and the problem is resolved. But then, when you’re at breaking point, utterly overwhelmed by admin and a website that keeps spontaneously deleting events on the programme, help arrives in the form of lovely people who come on board to do admin, fix your stupid website that has glitched you all the way to the brink of insanity, to publicise the festival, and who step forward to chair and moderate some online sessions.

We’re on day 2 of the festival. I’m writing this at 11.24pm, when my children have finally gone to bed (the 8pm bedtime of a school night has long been forgotten; my 9 year old slept in until 11am this morning, and they’re all pretty much living in their pyjamas and asking for crisps for tea). I’m exhausted, and am looking nervously at the next 13 days of the festival, as all 130 events require a moderator to be online to ensure room control and tech assistance. I’m wondering how I can do all of this while my four children are all at home, while I try to work full-time. But I am also enriched more than I can possibly say. The events have attracted hundreds of people from all over the world. Authors that I have admired for years – like Maggie O’Farrell, and CL Taylor, and Katherine May – are participating, and – even more important – the sudden profiling of the festival has enabled me to create a platform for new and emerging writers; via a showcase section on the website, open mic and showcase nights, and via seven Writing Residencies, which were initially going to be unpaid until Paper Nations stepped forward to offer a bursary for each writer. We did have some trolls enter the virtual space early on, as seems to have happened to many people responding to lockdown with their online socialising, but we quickly got some room control measures in place and that has worked well to keep them out. The feedback has been absolutely incredible. I can’t even begin to capture it here. I’ll try to, in a subsequent post, once the festival is over. Who knows what the world will look like then.

For now, check out my no-cost, self-made, friend-fixed website over at www.stayathomefest.wordpress.com, or visit the Twitter account @StayAtHomeFest. Please tell all your friends about it.

And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to Paper Nations, to Debi Alper, Gillian Stern, Gideon Leibowitz, Lizy Newswanger, Cal McBride, NB Magazine (particularly Martha and Danielle), Georgina Moore at Midas PR, Alice Lutyens, and many, many more people who I know have propelled this festival into the bright light it is fast becoming.

The post The Stay-at-Home! Literary Festival appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

Ruby. The cutest tornado you’ll ever meet.

This is Ruby. She says hello, and also sorry for the loooong blog hiatus. She’s just one of the many things that has happened over the last 18 months to keep me busy. Here are some of the other things:

I wrote and published my fourth novel, The Blame Game. More on that below.I got an Arts Council grant to carry out research for a new book, which involved a boat trip from Bergen to the Russian border and back again.I wrote some poems. They got published in lots of literary journals. I travelled. Lots. Los Angeles, Malta, Barcelona, and Norway – four times.I wrote another novel, The Nesting. More on that below.

First, The Blame Game.

Set in Belize, Mexico, Northumberland, the Alps, Paris, London, and a few other places in between, my fourth novel was published in Spring 2019 and selected as Book of the Month by LoveReading, who called it ‘a remarkable but devastating depiction of the after-effects of trauma.’

I had a couple of launches in Glasgow and Newcastle. Here’s me looking thrilled with Louise Welsh and the poet Jane Goldman.

copies of The Blame Game at my publisher’s office

In summer last year, I sent a sketchy idea for a fifth novel to my agent, who wrote back quickly to say she loved the sound of it. The book was set in Norway, somewhere I’ve never been. It involved architecture, something I know nothing about. Oh, and hydro-engineering, Norse folklore, Scandinavian wildlife, environmental policy, the Arctic, and lots of other things I needed to go an research. Luckily, an application I made to Arts Council England for a grant to travel to Norway was successful, so in November I made the first of 4 trips. You can read more about them on the dedicated research website, but in the meantime here are some pics:

It was an incredible, life-changing opportunity. I finished a draft of the novel while on board the ship shown above, the MS Richard With, which travelled from Bergen to Kirkenes and back in December 2018. The novel is out in 2020 and I’m incredibly proud of it.

I was so inspired by the research trips to Norway – and by what I learned about the current climate crisis – that I wrote some poems, some of which were published in the Spring issue of The Poetry Review. I was also invited to read these poems at the Poetry Society in London, along with Sophie Collins and Inua Ellams.

I’m very excited to have submitted the final draft of The Nesting to my editors in the US and UK, and the book is contracted for publication next year. Here I am celebrating with fellow author Emma Heatherington at the HarperCollins’ Summer party at the V&A in London earlier this week.

In the next couple of months I’m travelling to Malta and Iceland for literary events and also trying to find a writing residency that will send me to Greenland.

In the meantime, I’m finishing off my new poetry collection, We Have to Leave the Earth Because we Know So Much, and am in the very beginning stages of a new novel, which I’m tempted to set in Norway because fjords.

Until then, Ruby says g’nite and be kind, y’all.

The post The Blame Game appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

Happy New Year! In less than 48 hours, I KNOW MY NAME is released in the US and I’m super excited, not least because Entertainment Weekly have chosen it as one of their January reads!

Hope you have a fantastic 2018. Have you reneged on your resolutions yet?? One of my NY resolutions was to do yoga everyday, and I’ve had a nasty cold so haven’t felt up to it. But once it’s gone I’m planning on getting on with Adriene’s 30 day practice. I said in my last post that I’m intending on slowing down this year so that’s still on the agenda, though my work schedule is already pretty full… I’m back to teaching at the University of Glasgow after a blissful sabbatical and convening the MLitt Creative Writing, which has some fantastic students this year. The big news is that I’m delivering a new novel to my publisher at the end. I’m *almost* decided on the title but not quite, so will reveal all in due course…

The post appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

I’m converted to slowness these days.

It’s probably a result of being on sabbatical since the summer (thank you, University of Glasgow) and being forced to slow down by an assortment of minor illnesses. Perhaps it’s a consequence of these shorter, darker days of winter starting to close in (every year I forget how dark it gets, and how cold). Either way, I  am beginning to grasp the virtue of proceeding slowly. My piano teacher used to say, hasten slowly. The expression intrigued me. Speed has always been my default setting. Getting things done, and getting things down fast, has been my modus operandi, my auto-pilot, which applied even to the length of time it took me to give birth (around an hour each time). I existed for many years under a superstition that time was about to fritter away into dust. There is a flip-side to carpe diem. If you seize the day you can easily squeeze the life out of it, or yourself. No more rushing, thank you. I’m finally done with burnout.

That said, I think I’ve been fairly productive these last few months. I finished my new novel and am now editing it, which involves meandering around the edits a bit, contemplating them whilst bearing in mind that a field never was ploughed by thinking about it. I’ve written few poems, but am pleased that, despite being so unprolific, I’ve somehow managed to have a fair few of them accepted for publication by literary journals this year, including Interpreter’s House, The Stinging Fly, Compass Magazine, And Other Poems, & Butcher’s Dog (see bel0w), and one has recently been shortlisted for the Aesthetica Writing Competition.

Litro published one of my short stories in July.  has had reviews in Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, Elle Magazine, and I’ve been interviewed by a few places, including YOU magazine and The Belfast Telegraph. It’s still 99p on Kindle, in case you’re inclined to buy it.

Back in August I did an event with Gail Honeyman (author of the fantastic Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine) at the Wilderness Festival, which involved traipsing through fields during a thunderstorm and arriving at the event tent completely drenched. It was a good laugh, though. I also spent my birthday doing some signings at Waterstones branches in Scotland, which was loads of fun.

 

Oh, and I’ve organised a conference for my research project on writing for mental health. See here for details. Still a few tickets left.

A few days ago I had a gastroscopy, which involves a small camera being pushed down your oesophagus to check out what’s causing tummy issues. In my case, said tummy issues have been along the lines of severe acid reflux. It turns out I’ve a hiatus hernia in my oesophagus, but the over-abundance of stomach acid seems to be entirely stress related. Medication for this is simply: stop stressing. Hence my resignation to slowness, calmness, and not overworking.

I have to have another gastroscopy to see what damage has been caused to my stomach, and I’m not inclined at the moment to go ahead with it as my first acquaintance with swallowing a camera was much more horrible and painful than I’d anticipated. I have a hunch that slowing down might be the most effective medicine, anyway. And possibly introducing the word ‘no’ into my vocabulary, or being more picky about the things I say ‘yes’ to. I’ve said ‘yes’ to the role of editor for Studies in the Maternal journal (hugely excited about that) and have a feature article coming out in Mslexia’s winter 2017 issue, so I think I’m getting the usage of YES right so far.

 

 

The post Converted to Slowness appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

Really delighted to report that s a no. 1 iBooks bestseller, hitting the top spot in the Crime and Thriller category and ALL paid book categories.

 

Also delighted to find this lovely review of the book in July’s issue of ELLE magazine:

 

I’m launching the book at No Alibis Bookstore in Belfast this Thursday at 6.30 – it’s a free event, so please do come if you’re nearby! Tickets here.

The post No. 1 iBooks Bestseller! appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

Pleased to report that has made the top 40 Kindle bestselling books!

Also, I have a new story published on Litro – you can read it for free here.

The post Chart position and new story appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

It’s been one helluva 6 months. My daughter’s autism diagnosis in January. The Writing Motherhood anthology, published in March. My new novel,, published 2 weeks ago and in the Asda book chart from today, which is EPIC.

I held launches for the Writing Motherhood anthology but as yet haven’t arranged one for the novel, and the reasons are twofold: (a) I am so, so tired (see above – and add ‘whilst working full-time’ to the list) and (b) I hate being the centre of attention. I may still organise something to celebrate the book’s birth. Once I’ve caught up on some sleep.

But there have been many good things about 2017. My second novel, The Boy Who Could See Demons, is enjoying somewhat of a resurgence at the mo, mostly on account of a price promotion (£1.99 for Kindle). And I also walked into a book store in Barcelona recently and guess what I found!

A fabulous moment. I’m particularly thrilled with that little yellow sticker.

I got some fantastic reviews for both I KNOW MY NAME (in the Sunday Mirror) and Wales Arts Review published a brilliant review for the Writing Motherhood anthology last week. I also did a signing for I KNOW MY NAME at Forum Books (which is basically Heaven, though based in Northumberland) for Independent Book Week 2017.

I feel I’ve turned a corner with the autism diagnosis. One of the reasons I feel so passionate about raising awareness of and knowledge about autism is because understanding what autism is has been the key to dealing with my daughter’s diagnosis and finding a path forward. I will be honest, it took months to be able say (or think) that she is autistic without crying and feeling despondent. The more knowledge we can share on autism the better – and not just for parents who are trying to cope. We were in the south of France recently and let me tell you, it is pretty damn difficult to explain why your child is having a melt down when your French GCSE was 20 years ago. So we endured the looks and comments (mostly in supermarkets) but at times I really felt frustrated that people reacted with irritation.

The south of France was beautiful, though.

My wonderful employer, the University of Glasgow, is giving me a sabbatical until January to write my next novel and work on my research project on creative writing for mental illness, so my present focus is on wrapping on a draft of the novel I’m working on. I haven’t yet decided if this novel will be the one to follow immediately from I KNOW MY NAME, so there is a chance I’ll have to write another one after this one…

I have some wonderful bookish events coming up. I’m giving a talk at the Wilderness Festival on 5th August with Gail Honeyman, who is really lovely and gifted, as demonstrated by her debut Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I’m also participating in a panel discussion about motherhood and literature on 26th Oct, 7pm, at the Freud Museum in London – more on that later. And a little earlier than both of these is my talk on creative writing for mental illness which I’m giving at the Creative Bridges Conference in Bristol on 30th July.

Next week I’m in London for the HarperCollins Summer Party and am meeting with the TV producers who bought the rights to , which is uber-exciting. Until then, if you happen to see in Asda, feel free to tweet me a pic (or buy it – or both) – THANKS!

The post appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

The blog tour for I KNOW MY NAME commences tomorrow, Mon 12th June, with a spot on #northern#crime. The tour schedule is here – I’m looking forward to chatting with you all!

 

The post appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

It’s just under 1 month now until my new novel, , comes out in the UK in both paperback and audiobook (though the ebook is available now!), and today my editor sent me a finished paperback. It is EXQUISITE. I am so happy with the cover, the production quality, the blurb… These things are important. We agonised over the title (which originally was ‘I heard a wild thing calling’), the cover (we went through about fifteen different options before arriving at this one, which makes me salivate) and blurbs (by the lovely Nuala Ellwood and Caroline Smailes) and NOW WE ARE HERE.

If you could buy 15 copies of the book, review it passionately on Amazon and Goodreads and shout about it from the rooftops I will love for ever. On a more serious note, if you’re interested in parenthood, writing, and mental health, this is definitely a book for you.

 

 

The post New book is almost here….. appeared first on Carolyn Jess-Cooke.