Niamh Mulvey debuts with Picador
Sophie Jonathan, editorial director at Picador, has bought a story collection and novel by debut author Niamh Mulvey. Jonathan secured world print, digital and audio rights for Hearts and Bones and The Amendments from Sallyanne Sweeney at MMB Creative. The short story collection is out in summer 2022, followed by The Amendments in 2023.
Hearts and Bones: Love Songs For Late Youth comprises 11 stories moving between Ireland, London and the south of France, and are about different types of love as ‘friendships strain, families break apart, love fades, love warps, and love endures’. The Amendments was sold on a partial manuscript and grew from one of the stories in the collection. It is a ‘sweeping story about how the politics you grow up with can betray you, and about how you can love people whose views are totally opposed to your own’.
Jonathan said: “Niamh is an enormously talented writer – I was impressed by the varied voices of her stories, by the wit and thoughtfulness of her prose. There are stories in the collection that have stopped me and my colleagues in our tracks, and stories that raise a smile each time I think of them. And I couldn’t be more excited about The Amendments. Niamh writes with such emotional power it takes my breath away, and yet there is a sharp wit here too. I know The Amendments will be an astonishing novel, and I can’t wait to usher Niamh’s work into the world.”
Mulvey is from Kilkenny, Ireland, and is now based in South London. Her short fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly, Banshee and Southword and was shortlisted for the Seán O’Faoláin Prize for Short Fiction 2020. She worked as a commissioning editor at Hachette before leaving to go freelance in 2019, and runs the newsletter In The Read. She said: “I wrote these stories to get through lockdown, drawing from memories real and imagined, while feeling very far away from many of the people I love. I still can’t quite believe that they have landed with Picador and I am beyond thrilled to be working with the brilliant Sophie and her team.”
Sweeney said: “The range and skill in Niamh’s short story collection blew me away; you feel you know these characters already and delving into the intimacies of their lives kept me up all night. Her novel promises to be something extraordinary too and I’m excited for all that lies ahead with Picador.”
Text from Bookbrunch.
