An essay on the battle for our attention in the age of distraction. Attention pays. In today's online economy it has become a commodity to be bought and sold. Bombarding us with free smartphone apps and news websites, developers and advertisers have turned what and how focus our attention into the world's fastest growing industry. In exchange for our attention, information and entertainment is ever at our fingertips. But at what cost? In this essay, at once personal and polemical, meditati...

A fully updated comprehensive guide for improving and practicing your creative writing, including contributions from Ali Smith and Kit de WaalThe Creative Writing Coursebook, edited by Julia Bell and Paul Magrs, takes aspiring writers through three stages of essential practice: Gathering – getting started, learning how to keep notes, making observations and using memory; Shaping – looking at structure, point of view, chara...

Following the critically acclaimed Queer Life, Queer Love comes the second anthology, championing new and emerging writers alongside established authors. The anthology features voices across all narrative forms including fiction, poetry, memoir, essay and flash-fiction. The anthology will comprise 30 pieces of writing, the winning entries from an international competition to capture the best of queer writing today. Following the critically acclaimed Queer Life, Queer Love comes the second ...

'Ten minutes to midnight!' Jonathan shouts over the sound of the blazing fire. Sparks rise into the sky and mingle with the stars. 'Only ten minutes!' Bevins says, falling down on his knees. 'So it begins.'Rebekah has lived on the island her whole life, and it's only now that she's starting to wonder what she might experience outside her strict religious community. Alex has been sent to the island to escape her dark past, and through her eyes it's a dark and sinister place...

You know that rush of adrenaline? The kind that starts as a little flutter in your stomach and then explodes, making your pulse race and your feet move a little faster than they should? Welcome to my life. I never thought I'd be running for my life through a crumbling city or trying to outrun a group of sinister operatives with eyes that gleam like predators in the dark. But here I am, caught in a tangled web of danger and secrets, with Vincent, the last person I'd expect to trust, at my s...

Weight has always been a big issue in Carmen's life. Not surprising when her mum is obsessed with the idea that thin equals beauty, thin equals success, thin equals the way to get what you want. And somehow her daughter is going to be thin.When her mother sweeps her off to live in the city, Carmen finds her old world disappearing. With everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose. Carmen starts to ask: if she was thin, very thin, could it all be different?A new cover e...

I used to think the worst part of life was just keeping my head down, but apparently, nothing invites trouble quite like hiding from it. My name is Maeve, and I had a routine—survive the city, stay out of trouble, and pretend I could ignore the ghosts of my past. Easy enough, right? Wrong. Enter Lucian Shaw, all intensity and secrets, dragging me into a family war darker than any crime novel I've ever read. Lucian is the last person I want to be around and the only person who knows how dee...

At a time that feels unprecedented in British politics – with unlawful prorogations of parliament, casual race-baiting by senior politicians, and a climate crisis that continues to be ignored – it’s easy to think these are unchartered waters for us, as a democracy.But Britain has seen political crises and far-right extremism before, just as it has witnessed regressive, heavy-handed governments. Much worse has been done, or allowed to be done, in the name of the people and eventuall...

‘I loved it’ KIT DE WAAL, author of The Best of Everything‘Generous, intelligent, full of wisdom and insight’ LILY DUNN, author of Sins of My Father*A transformative guide to creative writing and the power of paying attention.The way we use language to tell stories reveals a lot about who we are and what matters to us. In Between the Lines, Julia Bell draws on almost thirty years o...

Jenni is an average teenage girl about to graduate from high school who keeps a blog about her struggles to get a boyfriend and arguments with her best friend, Carly. But Jenni's blog is a bit different. She's a pro-ana/pro-mia blogger documenting her struggles with her eating disorder, keeping track of her weight, calorie intake and what her parents made her eat.

“When the truth about her past is disclosed…the effect works like gangbusters.”–New York Times Book ReviewA girl's letters to her best friend reveal two lives derailed by anorexia in this haunting debut that's Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls meets The Sixth Sense.Zoe knows she doesn’t belong in a hospital—so why is she in one?Twin Birch isn’t just any hospital. It’s a strange mansion populated by unnervi...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A poignant story of a friendship frozen between life and death, from the award-winning author of Speak.“A fearless, riveting account of a young woman in the grip of a deadly illness.”—The New York Times“Anderson illuminates a dark but utterly realistic world . . .This is necessary reading.”—Booklist, starred review**Lia and Cassie are best friends, Wintergirls frozen in fragile bodies, competitors in ...