Hachette UK’s Pride Network announces ten selected writers for Grow Your Story initiative

17 September 2024 – Hachette Pride today announces its new cohort for the Grow Your Story initiative. Partnering with The Future Bookshelf and David Higham Associates, Grow Your Story is a writing support programme for unpublished, unagented LGBTQ+ fiction stars of the future.  

The selected writers were chosen from 235 submissions, which were initially scored by over 100 volunteer readers from across all Hachette divisions. Those with the highest average scores were sent to the panel of judges to form the final cohort.  

The judges were Little, Brown senior commissioning editor and co-chair of the Hachette Pride network Cal Kenny, DHA agent Sara Langham, and Hachette authors C. L. Clark (Little, Brown) and Laura Kay (Quercus).  

The ten selected writers will have access to a series of workshops commencing in January 2025, plus a mentor from both Hachette and David Higham Associates to work with them on their manuscript.  

Cal Kenny said: “The quality of Grow Your Story submissions was remarkable and these ten writers represent the very best of over 200 applicants, working across different genres, from fantasy to thriller, literary to commercial, and many moulding genre to meet their own ends. The other judges and I spoke for several hours and had robust conversations about the list, which showcases writers from across the UK and Ireland, all of whom have varying backgrounds and levels of experience. I can’t wait to support this cohort in this early part of what will, I hope, be illustrious careers. Judging has been a highlight of my time at Hachette so far and I want to thank everyone who has given their time and energy to championing this initiative, particularly the judges, and my colleagues Adriano Noble and George Baxter.” 

Judge C. L. Clark said: “It was a pleasure to read these stories and get to know the up-and-coming talent that the UK has to offer us as readers. I’m really looking forward to how they grow with this opportunity.” 

Grow Your Story selected writers and works: 

Barraigh Mòr by Amelia Aston  

During a devastating cold spell, a silent stranger arrives on Barraigh Mòr, a Scottish island that seceded from the UK following an escalating climate crisis and a military coup thirty years prior. But not everyone is happy about Iris’ arrival on the island, as old rivalries resurface and as secrets that jeopardise the very existence of the community threaten to come to light. 

Fireworks by Patrick Cash  

Jonny returns to Bristol for an old school friend’s wedding in 2017, where he drunkenly clashes with Máel. The encounter that stirs memories of their complex past, beginning during the final years of Section 28 at school and weaving through the years that follow.  

Lichwake by Kym Deyn 

Trapped in rural poverty, Eoin and his half-sister Sabina have few prospects, until Eoin makes a deal with the ancient powers lying in the bogs. A newly discovered bog body and its subsequent sale offers opportunities for them, but the body – and almost anyone associated with it – vanishes.  

Toxicity by Konrad Heller  

The Troubles are in full flood and the bloodletting is reaching epidemic levels. But the McRay boys are focused instead on making money and becoming feared criminals. Into their orbit is drawn Michael, a young queer man who left town to get away from the homophobia and violence, but his return will have unimaginable consequences on the McRays and their way of life.  

Amniotomy by Roisin Elizabeth Keats 

The Henderson family are salt of the Glasgow earth and Mairin has never considered that her life could be anything other than what it is. But a chance encounter at the famed Barrowland Ballrooms during its Christmas Eve reopening turns 1961 into the year Mairin realises how fragile her idyll is as she watches it shatter in ways she could never have imagined.  

Pathos by Laurie Kirwan-Ashman 

Rumi has always known that her ability to feel the emotions of others was abnormally strong, but summoning energy that can both heal and harm is unheard of. When tragedy spits her out into the wider world, enemies are sent to hunt Rumi down. But when Rumi meets Kit they go from enemies, to allies, to friends, to enemies once more. Together they may have the power to heal a wounded world.  

Gringo by David Martinez  

Beginning in 1989 and stretching over the course of three decades, Rio and foreigner Michael drift apart and are brought back together on the complicated streets of a paradisiacal beach town in Mexico, unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, until a final collision changes their lives forever. 

The Meow Woman by Alex Summer Milne  

Growing up, Billie and her best friend, Sophia, were terrified of the witch at the end of the road. The Meow Woman. But now, as Billie stumbles reluctantly into her thirties, the woman represents a different horror: spinsterhood. After learning of the Meow Woman’s death, Billie fears the same lonely fate, but when she enmeshes herself in the dead lady’s affairs she discovers a story of defiance and independence that may inspire her to forge her own path.  

Resonance by Kerry Ryan  

2064. Linguist, Dr Caitlin Garrick is celebrating her keynote speech at the Tech/Futures conference in Mumbai. Until she overhears a stranger making a sinister threat in Yulay, a rare language only 200 people in the world – and Caitlin – speak. But was it truly a threat? Can she be sure? And does Caitlin really want her own long-buried secrets to surface?  

It Bleeds from Our Fingers by Corranne Wheeler 

The princet has been outlawed, a blood custom demands to be met and a kingdom plots. Forced apart, caught between princets and witches, stepsister Zora and Johanna battle with the fractures threatening to shatter their fragile family. But the cost of love and loyalty may prove too high. And the princet is not the only one being hunted.