We are thrilled that MA and PhD Creative Writing Alumni, Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow’s debut novel AllThe Little Bird-Heartshas been published by Tinder Press.
The idea for the novel originated from a writing class with Patricia Debney during her MA, which caused Viktoria to rethink her plans for her subsequent studies. She says ‘I was planning for a PhD in Italian Literature, but Patricia encouraged me to consider continuing with creative writing instead.
‘Amy Sackville then became my supervisor for a PhD on The Contemporary Novel and I wroteAll the Little Bird-Heartsas part of that doctoral work’.
维多利亚进一步凸显了significance of the academic support she received at Kent by reflecting on her second supervisor, David Flusfeder, saying ‘it was one of his novels which originally inspired me to return to education as a mature student without any qualifications whatsoever’. She recently wrote an article about how his book, The Gift, influenced her study process, which will be published in Writing magazine in May.
All the Little Bird-Heartsis set in the Lake District in the mid-1980s and is narrated by Sunday, an autistic single mother to a teenage girl. It documents one summer in which everything changes between the two of them; a glamorous couple move in next door and proceed to bewitch the small family. It is available to buy on Audible, Amazon, and Waterstones.