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Welbeck Non-Fiction and Mountain Leopard Press sign ex-prisoner Calvey
Headline’s Welbeck Non-Fiction and Mountain Leopard Press have signed ex-prisoner Linda Calvey for a memoir and further novels.
On the non-fiction side, editorial director Oliver Holden-Rea acquired world all-language rights from Kerr MacRae at Kerr MacRae LPA to a memoir about Calvey’s time inside some of the UK’s most notorious prisons. Life Inside: The Hard Reality of Prison and What It Takes To Survive will publish on 4th January 2024, as a hardback, trade paperback, e-book and audiobook, and will be a lead title for Welbeck Non-Fiction.
Life Inside explores the "systems, characters and rules of prison life" from Calvey, who was one of Britain’s longest-serving female prisoners. The synopsis says: "As well as telling stories of fights, dodgy dealings and screws getting taken hostage, it also looks at her unlikely encounters with notorious criminals Charles Bronson, Rose West and Myra Hindley."
Holden-Rea added: "I am happy to be publishing the follow-up to Linda’s first memoir, The Black Widow. There was still so much of Linda’s story left to tell and no one better to look at the harsh and fascinating world of prison life, as well what it takes to make it out the other side, than Linda. Her story is captivating story but also beautifully human, and I cannot wait for people to read."
Calvey is also a novelist, having published novels The Locksmith (Welbeck) and The Game (Mountain Leopard Press). Mountain Leopard Press will launch a new series, first with Faith publishing on 9th May 2024 in hardback, e-book and audio. The deal was negotiated by Rosa Schierenberg (currently editorial director at Viking) and Beth Wickington, editorial director of Mountain Leopard Press, will publish the series.
The book’s synopsis says: "Spanning 1960s Wakefield through to 1990s Stepney, Faith introduces mother and daughter Annie and Maria Wills as they navigate a new life in the seedier side of London’s East End. When circumstances befall the women that throw them into the firing line of dangerous men, they must stand together to protect their family. As Maria’s daughters, Faith, Hope and Charity, grow up they are faced with every kind of obstacle. But no matter what, the women of this family won’t be broken."
Wickington commented: "I am excited to be working with Linda and to launch her brilliant new East London gangland series. Linda is the real deal – she has lived and breathed this world and her characters are imbued with such authenticity that it feels like you are really there with them. In Faith, we have not only the start of a compelling new series, but also the introduction of an unbeatable new family. The Wills women are not to be messed with, and readers are going to love them."
