Back in autumn 2012, when I was still up at St Andrews, Caroline Edwards and I held a hugely enjoyable and productive conference on author Maggie Gee, as part of my Gylphi Contemporary Writers book series. Three years later, after a job move each for Caroline and I, we couldn’t be more delighted to see the fruits of that conference and of the labour of us and our contributors, come to fruition. Maggie Gee: Critical Essays will be published on 5th October and is available for pre-order here. Even if we do say so ourselves, it’s a superb volume covering her key works as well as including a foreword by Maggie herself, as well as a copy of her previously uncollected lecture on literature, ‘How May I Speak in My Own Voice? Language and the Forbidden’.

After a few years gaining momentum the Gylphi Contemporary Writers Series has now hit full speed: China Miéville: Critical Essays, edited by Caroline Edwards and Tony Venezia, will be forthcoming in November, with titles on Tom McCarthy (whose novel Satin Island is shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015), Adam Roberts and Rupert Thomson forthcoming in 2016.