Fresh Voices: 50 writers you should read now—The Guardian
A major, highly original talent.–Cathi Unsworth
SEALED is the perfect modern horror novel.–Helen Marshall
Panel 1
About
I am a writer and academic. My fiction explores, amongst other things, weird landscapes, concentric objects, compulsive fainting, pregnancy, skin, crocuses, environmental contamination. My academic work focuses on the literary history of swooning and on contemporary fiction, especially in relation to depictions of the environment and the body.
I completed a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Sussex, and researched literary swooning, which inspired my first work of fiction, The Lost Art of Sinking (2015). This was selected for New Writing North’s Read Regional campaign 2017 and won the Saboteur Award for Best Novella 2016. My first novel, Sealed, is a work of eco-horror, which was shortlisted for the Not the Booker Award 2018. My second novel, Exit Management, moves between contemporary London and Dewsbury, and 1940s Budapest. My first love is short fiction, and my stories have been long-listed for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, and anthologised in Best British Short Stories 2019. I’ve recently re-written the Yorkshire folktale of the boggart for the Audible Original and Virago collection, Hag.
I am an experienced creative writing lecturer, mentor and prize judge. I previously lectured in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Sussex and York St John University, where I was Subject Director for Creative Writing and worked with colleagues within the York Centre of Writing. I am now Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Durham University.
I have spent most of my life in Yorkshire: I was born in Bradford, grew up in Dewsbury, and now live in York.
Published by Dead Ink Books September 2020 (buy Exit Management here)
A Guardian Best Fiction Book of 2020
‘Exit Management is an essential novel for our times. It fizzes with anxiety and desperate characters; building to a chokehold of thrilling tension. A joy from the first page to the last, all told in exhilaratingly exquisite prose.’– Lara Williams, author of Supper Club
‘Exit Management tells the story of three souls cast adrift in an uncaring world and the redemptive power of art, friendship and love. Naomi Booth renders her entirely believable characters in hauntingly poetic prose that is as beautiful as it is tragic. A major, highly original talent.’– Cathi Unsworth, author of Weirdo
‘A stunning exploration of the human urge to love, protect and remember, and an empathetic study of lost souls driven to connect. Written in poetic and haunting prose, Exit Management pierces the dark heart of society, letting in the light.’– Megan Bradbury, author of Everyone is Watching
‘Sour Hall’ in HAG
Published by Virago (2020) and Audible Original (2019) (Buy HAG here)
Forgotten folktales, retold.
‘A thoroughly original package that has a hint of Angela Carter’ The Times
Published by Dead Ink Press (UK), October 2017; Titan Press (US) (buy Sealedhere)
Shortlisted for the Guardian “Not the Booker” Award 2018
We came out here to begin again. We came out here for the clear air and a fresh start. No one said to us: beware of fresh starts. No one said to us: God knows what will begin.
‘[A]n accomplished, slow-burning meditation on motherhood, pregnancy and love … The tense, gut-wrenching climax is a masterclass in sustained descriptive imagery: though it’s not for the faint-hearted, and expectant mothers might choose to steer clear, Sealed is a marvellous first novel.‘–The Guardian
‘Sealed is a harrowing, engaging, moving and deeply thoughtful text about motherhood, anxiety, conservation and romantic relationships: in short, it’s an absolute belter and exactly the kind of unique fiction that indie presses should be proud to publish. ’— Open Pen
‘There is an unbearable truth about the modern world to be found in this book… What a delicate, provoking balance of apocalyptic vision and personal journey Sealed is. I loved it.’ –Aliya Whiteley, The Arrival of Missives
The Lost Art of Sinking
Shortlisted for the MMU Novella Award 2014 Winner of the Saboteur Award for Best Novella 2016 Selected for New Writing North: Read Regional 2017
Published by Penned in the Margins, 2015 (buy The Lost Art of Sinkinghere)
Some call it the fainting game, others Indian Headrush – but it’s all the rage amongst the girls of Class 2B. “It make you go all rushy. You feel like you’re falling into a dream.”
Naomi Booth’s lyrical and witty novella, The Lost Art of Sinking, could be the next big thing… Beautifully written with bursts of crisp poetic monologue and deadpan humour, the novella shows unusual talent. Naomi Booth is a name to watch.
“Cluster”, long-listed for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award 2018; the Galley Beggars Short Story Prize 2018; anthologised in Best British Short Stories 2019 (Salt).
Flash Fiction
“Optography”, “Compression” and “Tall Tales” anthologised in the Quick Fiction app (Myriad Editions, Brighton: 2011-2015)
So we went up to Shell’s and the dogs were going mad. She walks them infrequently, at the dead of night; if anyone saw us, she says, the police might confiscate them. Trixie, an American Pit Bull, pinned me to the sofa and breathed meaty halitosis in my face; I could feel it condense in a dog-spittle film over my Christmas-Day make-up. “She probably won’t hurt you,” Shell said.
New Writing North Read Regional events – April to June 2017
Monkseaton Library, Whitley Bay – Tuesday 20th June 2017
Penrith Library, St. Andrews Churchyard, Penrith – Monday 12th June 2017
Darwen Library, Darwen – Wednesday 7th June 2017
Doncaster Central Lending Library, Doncaster – Thursday 18th May 2017
Lindley Library, Huddersfield – Tuesday 9th May 2017
Denby Dale Library, Huddersfield – Tuesday 9th May 2017
Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Burdon Road, Sunderland – Thursday 6th April 2017
Panel 4
Research
My academic research primarily focuses on the literary history of swooning; on contemporary fiction and critical theory; and on literature and the environment.
Books
Swoon: The Poetics of Passing Out (Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2020)
Articles
“Dark Ecology and Queer Amphibious Vampires.” UnderCurrents: Journal of Critical Environmental Studies. Special issue, “From Queer/Nature to Queer Ecologies: Celebrating twenty years of scholarship and creativity” 19 (2015) 51-59
“The Felicity of Falling: Fifty Shades of Grey and the Feminine Art of Sinking.” Women: A Cultural Review 26(1-2) (2015) 22-39
“Restricted View: The Problem of Perspective in the Novels of Ian McEwan.” Textual Practice 29(5) (2015) 845-868
“Bathetic Masochism and the Shrinking Woman.” New Formations 83 (2014) 47-64
“Feeling Too Much: The Swoon and the (In)Sensible Woman.” Women’s Writing 21(4) (2014) 575-591
Book Chapters
“Good Vibrations: Shaken Subjects and the Disintegrative Romance Heroine.” Women and Erotic Fiction: Critical Essays on Genres. Ed. Kristen Phillips (McFarland, 2015)
Journalism & Press Interviews
“Weird landscapes: A quintet” for DeadInkBooks.com, 3rd August 2017
“Swoon! The cultural history of an ecstatic phenomenon” in Prospect Magazine, 25th June 2015
“The top 10 literary swoons” in The Guardian, 19th June 2015
Interview with Ian Macmillan, The Verb, BBC Radio 3, 6th June 2015
“Giddy heights of research translate into fiction”: Interview with Times Higher Education, 4th June 2015
