{"id":315,"date":"2015-03-08T11:48:15","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T11:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/?p=315"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:19:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:19:41","slug":"melissa-second-novel-to-be-published","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/2015\/03\/08\/melissa-second-novel-to-be-published\/","title":{"rendered":"Melissa: Second Novel to be Published"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/files\/2015\/03\/melissa-cover-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-316\" src=\"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/files\/2015\/03\/melissa-cover-1-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"melissa cover 1\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/files\/2015\/03\/melissa-cover-1-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/files\/2015\/03\/melissa-cover-1.jpg 422w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m happy to announce that\u00a0my second novel, entitled <em>Melissa<\/em>, will be published by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saltpublishing.com\/\">Salt Publishing<\/a>\u00a0towards the end of\u00a02015. Salt were also the publisher of my first novel, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saltpublishing.com\/shop\/proddetail.php?prod=9781907773273\"><em>Entertaining Strangers<\/em><\/a>, in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>The novel is inspired by a true story. An early draft was long-listed for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk\/\">Exeter Novel Prize<\/a> 2013.<\/p>\n<p>At roughly 2p.m. on the 9th of June 1999, on a small street in Stoke-on-Trent, a young girl, Mellissa Comb, dies of complications arising from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. Immediately afterwards, all the residents on the street experience the same musical hallucination: starting with a high-pitched shriek, they feel compelled to leave their houses, whereupon they all hear \u2013 or think they hear \u2013 the same piece of beautiful orchestral music. <em>Melissa<\/em> is about this collective musical hallucination, and its aftermath over the course of the\u00a0following year. Whilst everyone\u2019s gaze seems fixed on what becomes known as \u2018The Spark Close Phenomenon,\u2019 nobody seems to notice what\u2019s happening to the family at the centre of it all, as it quietly disintegrates in the wake of Melissa\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be holding a book launch late in 2015 or early 2016 &#8211; more details to follow!<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for reading, <a href=\"http:\/\/jonathanptaylor.co.uk\/\">Jonathan Taylor<\/a>\u00a0(Lecturer in Creative Writing, School of English).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m happy to announce that\u00a0my second novel, entitled Melissa, will be published by Salt Publishing\u00a0towards the end of\u00a02015. Salt were also the publisher of my first novel, Entertaining Strangers, in 2012. The novel is inspired by a true story. An early draft was long-listed for the Exeter Novel Prize 2013. At roughly 2p.m. on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-writing","category-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}