School of Manchester

Graduates from the city’s university writing schools read from and discuss their debut novels. Kei Miller has published several collections of poetry and a book of short stories, The Fear of Stones, shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writer's prize. His debut novel, The Same Earth (Weidenfeld & Nicholson) has been described as ‘a Jamaican Alexander McCall Smith meets Small Island by Andrea Levy’. Stephen May’s first novel Tag (Cinnamon) is full of wit, drama and an eye for the absurdities of the way we live now. May is also the author of the plays Back the World and Still Waiting for Everything. In the filthy, ferocious and very funny Friction (Vintage), Joe Stretch launches a full-frontal attack on the pornography of everyday life, imagining a world where shopping reigns supreme, sex has ceased to have anything to do with love, and pregnancy has become the final fetish.

Read an interview with Joe Stretch on the CityLife website.