A few fun updates to share this summer!
My WIP about an unsettling funfair by the sea was shortlisted for the Bridge Awards Emerging Writers Award 2022. Lovely to be shortlisted for this award again, especially after a wonderful writing retreat experience at Moniak Mhor.
I have a couple stories out in the world. 'Windsinger', an original fairy tale based on the Scottish folk tale 'The Seal Killer,' is available to read online for free at Crow and Cross Keys. My story ' A Cradle the Shape and Colour of a Walnut' about a fortune teller who finds a lost baby in the sea is available to read in the print version of Seaborne Magazine's third issue.
I'm also very pleased to have joined the Death Writes Network at the University of Glasgow. The network is a group of writers interested in writing about death and grief and is a place for us to make connections and share ideas. As anyone reading this might be aware, writing about grief is a bit of an obsession of mine.
Last week, I presented a paper about the Seaside Gothic in British contemporary fiction for the Once and Future Fantasies Conference. I'll be sharing that essay in the next newsletter update. You can look forward to ghostly seascapes, creepy piles of seaweed, and even a Frozen reference coming soon.
And last (but not least) I'm very excited to share that my debut gothic fantasy novel The Grief Nurse will be published in the UK by Sandstone Press. Sandstone is an independent Scottish press, and I'm very proud to be working with them to get The Grief Nurse out into the world. You can read the full announcement via The Bookseller. I'll share pre-order links and the cover reveal soon!
Thanks for reading!
Angie Spoto is an American fiction writer and poet living in Edinburgh. In 2020, she completed a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. Her doctoral thesis was a fantasy novel, called The Grief Nurse, and a collection of essays on grief, madness and language. The Grief Nurse has been shortlisted for the First Novel Prize 2021 and The Bridge Awards Emerging Writer Award in 2020. Angie is represented by Robbie Guillory from Underline Literary Agency.