Aye Write 2023: Ones to Watch – Sarah Tomas, JJ Scott, Wiz Wharton

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Aye Write 2023: Ones to Watch – Sarah Tomas, JJ Scott, Wiz Wharton

Saturday 27 `May, 2023 11 a.m. – 12 noon

The Mitchell Library, North Street, Glasgow G3 7DN

Aye Write prides itself on spotlighting new talent and punchy stories. Debut novels by Sarah Tomas, JJ Scott and Wiz Wharton will feature in this ‘Ones To Watch’ event which platforms some of our best new writers.

On a balmy evening in late March, Kata hosts a party on her husband’s superyacht. Tables cover the massive deck, adorned with orchids, champagne bottles, name cards of famous people, while uniformed staff flank a red carpet on the landing dock. This night marks the attainment of something she’s wanted for a long time: acceptance into the glittering world of high society. But some around Kata are full of resentment and closer to home than she could have ever imagined.

Narrated with delicious unreliability by an Englishwoman employed to tutor this family’s precocious daughter, Queen K by Sarah Thomas pulls back the curtain on the power plays within one extraordinary family, as world politics begin to encroach on their corrupt and fiercely defended haven.

In JJ Scott’s The Making of Maggie Munroe, we meet a girl with the strength of Glasgow in her heart and a bunch of men trying to muscle their way into it. They won’t rest until only one has succeeded but, fortunately, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly and can see them coming a mile off – with the help of her intuition, her deid mammy and a Knickerbocker glory.

It is wartime in Maryhill, Glasgow. The city is in turmoil but, throughout it all, its residents struggle for whatever sliver of normalcy they can get. With the support of a boisterous family and steadfast friends, can Maggie navigate 1930s and 40s societal politics in her attempt to find the right path? Her gang includes her unwavering daddy who often cannot see past the end of his nose, an interfering aunt whose biggest belief is in her own opinion and a train wreck girlfriend striving for acceptance, so, when it comes to the four men makin’ a meal o’ it, they are in good company. Still, oor Maggie will not go down without a fight.

Wiz Wharton’s Ghost Girl, Banana is a stunning, powerful debut novel about the choices we make and what it costs to belong.

1966: Sook-Yin is exiled from Kowloon to London with orders to restore honour to her family. As she strives to fit into a world that does not understand her, she realizes that survival will mean carving out a destiny of her own.

1997: Sook-Yin’s daughter Lily can barely remember the mother she lost as a small child. But when she is unexpectedly named in the will of a powerful Chinese stranger, she embarks on a secret pilgrimage to Hong Kong to discover the lost side of her identity and claim the reward. But she soon learns that the secrecy around her heritage has deep roots, and good fortune comes at a price.

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