Today I’m sharing a tiny little look at another of Kate and Matt’s lives – one which isn’t mentioned in the book. It’s set in a vaguely medieval time, and is 100% inspired by this picture I found, which looks exactly like Kate.
Photograph by Vestal Magazine
In the story, Kate is a midwife with a secret place in the woods where she keeps her herbs and medicines, because the villagers are suspicious of magic and witches. Matthew is the village hangman, mainly because I just couldn’t resist a ‘Matthew Galloway’ pun.
In other news: I’m going to be doing a panel at Waterstones Birmingham on 12 September! at their Book Blogger Bonanza! Tickets are available now by calling 0121 631 4333. You can see all of the events I’m attending here.
Lauren James is the twice Carnegie-nominated British author of many Young Adult novels, including The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker, The Loneliest Girl in the Universe and The Quiet at the End of the World. She is also a Creative Writing lecturer, freelance editor, screenwriter, and the founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League. Her upcoming release is Green Rising, a climate change thriller.
Her books have sold over a hundred thousand copies worldwide, been translated into five languages and shortlisted for the YA Book Prize and STEAM Children’s Book Award. Her other novels include The Next Together series, the dyslexia-friendly novella series The Watchmaker and the Duke and serialised online novel An Unauthorised Fan Treatise.
She was born in 1992, and has a Masters degree from the University of Nottingham, UK, where she studied Chemistry and Physics. Lauren is a passionate advocate of STEM further education, and many of her books feature female scientists in prominent roles. She sold the rights to her first novel when she was 21, whilst she was still at university.
Her writing has been described as ‘gripping romantic sci-fi’ by the Wall Street Journal and ‘a strange, witty, compulsively unpredictable read which blows most of its new YA-suspense brethren out of the water’ by Entertainment Weekly. The Last Beginning was named one of the best LGBT-inclusive works for young adults by the Independent.
Lauren lives in the West Midlands and is an Arts Council grant recipient. She has written articles for numerous publications, including the Guardian, Buzzfeed, Den of Geek, The Toast, and the Children’s Writers and Artist’s Yearbook 2021. She teaches creative writing for Coventry University, WriteMentor, and Writing West Midlands, providing creative writing courses to children through the Spark Young Writers programme.
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4 thoughts on “7 day countdown to The Next Together: A medieval short story!”
4 thoughts on “7 day countdown to The Next Together: A medieval short story!”