'Absolutely unforgettable. A raw, visceral triumph that echoes modern classics like Trainspotting, Young Mungo and A Little Life, yet stands entirely on its own.' John Marrs Anyone can write a bestseller. Here’s how: GO GAY It’s been seven years since Mallory shot to fame as a literary sensation. But after years of struggling with writer’s block, she’s desperate to resurrect her career before it spirals into obscurity. She needs inspiration to strike – and fast. GO SAD Enter a young struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He’s vulnerable. He’s enigmatic. He’s exactly what Mallory has been looking for. GO DARK Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. Authenticity sells, and there’s nothing more authentic than real life. She’s the perfect person to tell Leo’s story. Gay, sad, dark – just what the world needs right now. But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must just how far will she go to pen the perfect story?

Grace is no longer famous. She sits alone in her New York apartment, endlessly watching reruns of herself on the reality TV show Speed Daters. Then, one evening, a man breaks in through her window. A rare, still-obsessed fan or raging incel – Grace is unsure. Before she can find out, he disappears. That same night, the world is rocked by the news that Anoushka, Grace's onscreen rival, has taken her own life. Suddenly thrust back into the public eye, Grace is thrilled to be relevant again. Driven by a familiar desperation for love and attention, she clings to the dregs of her old her followers; her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Cal; and her unstable influencer income. But fame is fickle, and Grace's image is fragile. When the fans begin to turn on her, Grace escapes with Cal to his isolated cabin. In the woods with nothing but each other, can they mend what's broken without destroying what little is left? A piercing debut exposing the toxicities of reality TV and influencer culture, After Care is a disconcertingly recognisable portrait of reckless consumerism, spectatorship and the attention economy. Perfect for fans of Boy Parts by Eliza Clark, Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. This novel contains discussions of suicide and graphic depictions of sexual assault.

Feminine rage, cancel culture, and suffocating societal pressure—a cutting and brazen thriller about two Asian American women on a quest for revenge after a public shaming pushes them to the limit, for fans of Yellowface and Counterfeit. When a conflict with a fellow passenger on the subway spirals into a humiliating breakdown, Shelley Hu’s life is over. The incident goes viral, costing Shelley her prestigious Manhattan law firm internship, her spot at Columbia Law, and her plan to build a better life for herself and her mother. Months later, Shelley is back in Kissimmee, Florida, working the night shift at a kitschy motel near Disney World—the very same job she held in high school. Shelley’s life is a black hole until, one night, the beautiful, enigmatic Sophia Moon checks in with her husband and young son. But Sophia’s appearance is far from random. It turns out that, once upon a time, Sophia suffered her own episode of public shaming. Since then, Sophia has rebuilt a new life, and she promises to help Shelley do the same. More importantly, Sophia vows to help Shelley enact revenge on the three people responsible for the worst day of her life with a precise set of plans. Shelley returns to New York with a new identity and plans that start off well. But when the situation soon spirals out of control, Shelley is forced to reckon with Sophia’s unspeakably dark side—though it may be too late.

For over two decades, Stephen Jeffreys's remarkable series of workshops attracted writers from all over the world and shaped the ideas of many of today's leading playwrights and theatre-makers. Now, with this inspiring, highly practical book, you too can learn from these acclaimed Masterclasses. Playwriting reveals the various invisible frameworks and mechanisms that are at the heart of each and every successful play. Drawing on a huge range of sources, it deconstructs playwriting into its constituent parts, and offers illuminating insights into: Structure an in-depth exploration of the fundamental elements of drama, enabling you to choose instinctively the most effective structure for your play Character advice on how to generate and write credible characters by exploring their three essential dimensions: story, breadth and depth How to Write techniques for writing great dialogue, dynamic scenes and compelling subtext, including how to improve your writing by approaching it from unfamiliar directions What to Write how to adopt different approaches to finding your material, how to explore the fundamental 'Nine Stories', and how to evaluate the potential of your ideas Written by a true master of the craft, this authoritative guide will provide playwrights at every level of experience with a rich array of tools to apply to their own work. This edition, edited by Maeve McKeown, includes a Foreword by April De Angelis.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. The detective is at the height of his powers and the volume is full of famous cases, including 'The Red-Headed League', 'The Blue Carbuncle', and 'The Speckled Band'. The editor of this volume, Richard Lancelyn Green is editor of The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes and The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. With John Michael Gibson, he compiled the Soho Series Bibliography of A. Conan Doyle.

Stuck in a regional McDonald's, as bushfires close in, three 20-somethings and their dead friend's mum all face a reckoning. Fern longs for Ethan, Ethan longs for Jacob, and Jacob struggles to long for anything. Meanwhile, Pat just wants her grief to ease up. Soft Serve proves that small-town lives are huge, and that anyone can get stuck in limbo between their past and their hoped-for future. From celebrated Australian playwright and actor George Kemp comes this charming and poignant it's drive-thru Chekhov… and full of heart.

From a rising literary star and the author of How to Be a Good Girl comes a brilliant, biting, and beautifully wrought memoir of trauma and the cost of survivalIn the thick of lockdown, 2020, poet, critic, and memoirist Jamie Hood published her debut, How to Be a Good Girl, an interrogation of modern femininity and the narratives of love, desire, and violence yoked to it. The Rumpus praised Hood's “bold vulnerability,” and Vogue named it a Best Book of 2020. In Trauma Plot, her long-awaited follow-up, Hood turns her eye to the archetype of the rape survivor, who must perform penitence long after living through the unthinkable. In her trademark blend of memoir and criticism, Hood investigates the lives of art's most infamous women, from Ovid's Philomela and David Lynch’s Laura Palmer to Artemisia Gentileschi, the painter who captured Judith’s wrath—as well as Hood herself, reckoning with three decades of sexual violence and the wreckage left behind. In so doing, she What do we as a culture demand of survivors? And what do survivors, in turn, owe a world that has abandoned them? Trauma Plot is a scalding work of personal and literary criticism. It is a send-up of our culture's pious disdain for “trauma porn,” a dirge for the broken promises of #MeToo, and a paean to life after death.

In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain. For the last decade, as she’s spent countless hours in doctor’s waiting rooms searching for diagnoses, treatments, and relief, being the owner and operator of Lena Dunham’s body has felt, as she puts it, “like towing a wrecked car across town at midnight.” It’s not easy dragging a wrecked car anywhere, much less to the Met Gala while sewn into a gold lamé corset. Or to the set of the hit show that you—as a twenty-five-year-old—are writing, directing, producing, and starring in. Or to the White House, the Golden Globes, or your publicist’s office to discuss the latest internet disaster. But Dunham does it—even if it means interminable hospital stays, vomiting in the bathroom when she’s meant to be meeting Oprah, or terrifying those closest to her—because she can no longer tell the difference between fighting to do what she loves and being a servant to her own ambition. All the while, she is holding out for a love that can withstand her personal and public challenges and, more than anything, yearning to feel like herself again—if only she could remember who that self was. As Dunham takes us through her journey, tracking her rise to fame—from selling the pilot of Girls to the present—in three acts, it becomes clear that the spotlight casts long shadows, distorting the relationships she once held dear and isolating everyone in its glare. When an endless supply of drugs can’t protect you from pain—and begins to control your every move—being famous doesn’t stand a chance against the darker corners of the human experience. In Famesick, Dunham asks herself what the cost of fulfilling her dreams has really been, and whether it was worth it. What she finds is deeper than physical relief, and more lasting, as she learns to live with what she can’t change and turn her regrets into wisdom that can carry her forward, as she reconnects to what, and who, she loves.

Feminine rage, cancel culture, and suffocating societal pressure—a cutting and brazen thriller about two Asian American women on a quest for revenge after a public shaming pushes them to the limit, for fans of Yellowface and Counterfeit. When a conflict with a fellow passenger on the subway spirals into a humiliating breakdown, Shelley Hu’s life is over. The incident goes viral, costing Shelley her prestigious Manhattan law firm internship, her spot at Columbia Law, and her plan to build a better life for herself and her mother. Months later, Shelley is back in Kissimmee, Florida, working the night shift at a kitschy motel near Disney World—the very same job she held in high school. Shelley’s life is a black hole until, one night, the beautiful, enigmatic Sophia Moon checks in with her husband and young son. But Sophia’s appearance is far from random. It turns out that, once upon a time, Sophia suffered her own episode of public shaming. Since then, Sophia has rebuilt a new life, and she promises to help Shelley do the same. More importantly, Sophia vows to help Shelley enact revenge on the three people responsible for the worst day of her life with a precise set of plans. Shelley returns to New York with a new identity and plans that start off well. But when the situation soon spirals out of control, Shelley is forced to reckon with Sophia’s unspeakably dark side—though it may be too late.

Table of Contents Silver Blaze The Cardboard Box The Yellow Face The Stockbroker's Clerk The 'Gloria Scott' The Musgrave Ritual The Reigate Squire The Crooked Man The Resident Patient The Greek Interpreter The Naval Treaty The Final Problem