Northern Fiction Alliance launches London summer showcase

The Northern Fiction Alliance is launching a London summer showcase of five of its publishers and their forthcoming authors next month.

Led by Comma Press, the alliance is comprised of 11 publishers, and seeks to celebrate and platform writing from the north of England. The event will mark the group's first in-person showcase since the pandemic.

It will take place on 17th August, from 7pm to 9pm, at Partizan Brewing in Bermondsey, and will be a chance to celebrate new titles from the cohort of London-based authors, including publisher introductions and readings.

Publishers featuring include And Other Stories with Tice Cin, author of Keeping the House, Bluemoose Books with Heidi James, author of The Sound Mirror, Comma Press with The Cuckoo Cage writer Courttia Newland, Dead Ink with Small Rivers author Harry Gallon and Saraband with The Mahogany Pod writer Jill Hopper.

Tickets are £3, and limited to social distancing capacity numbers.

Zoe Turner, publicist at Comma Press, said: "After a year of online work and necessary distance from other parts of the country, Comma are thrilled to be organising a live London-based showcase for five of the Northern Fiction Alliance publishers and their authors. The event will be a celebration of both books that were launched mid-pandemic, and books that are forthcoming in 2021.

"Comma's own showcase is Courttia Newland, prolific novelist, screen-writer for Steve McQueen's 'Small Axe' series and a contributing author to our forthcoming anthology The Cuckoo Cage, which re-tells the stories of Britain's modern-day political superheroes, publishing in October. The mixture of titles and authors is fantastic, and we can't wait to welcome the public to these readings at Partizan."