GUY MANKOWSKI

All too often as writers I think it’s very easy for us to get our ambition caught up with trying to making good art. A few years ago various novels on the go with which I had a lot of hopes and ambitions caught up with. But then a scene- in which a young boy remembers watching his sister perform with her band and how watching her changed him- pushed itself to the fore in my mind.   This one scene seemed to come from nowhere and almost write itself. When I shared it online there was a natural, organic reaction from strangers (very unusual, usually it’s like sending something out into a void!) and people said they really liked it and wanted more. While I ploughed on thanklessly with novels in which all these grand pseudo intellectual ideas were being played out through tortured plot lines I would sometimes, for my idea of fun, go back to that little story of his boy and his sister. What was curious was the extent to which (and I know this is common for writers ) my own experiences, s...

I'm thrilled to share that my first novel since 2016 is being published internationally by Darkstroke / Crooked Cat Books in September; Emma Imrie was a Plath-obsessed, self-taught teenage musician dreaming of fame, from a remote village on the Isle of Wight. She found it too, briefly becoming a star of the nineties Camden music scene. But then she died in mysterious circumstances. In the aftermath of Emma’s death, her younger brother, Jeff, is forced by their parents to stay at the opulent home of childhood friends on the island. During a wild summer of beach parties and music, Jeff faces up to the challenges that come with young love, youthful ambition and unresolved grief. His sister’s prodigious advice from beyond the grave becomes the only weapon he has against an indifferent world. As well as the only place where the answers he craves might exist… "Dead Rock Stars" took a long time to write and I benefited from the input of lots of readers. On one level ...