Bookable Space: A Space to Launch (and re-launch) Books

In this episode of Bookable Space, we’re joined by Carolyn Korsmeyer reading from Riddle of Spirit and Bone. Carolyn talks to us about influences for the book, writing and researching places you know well, what location makes possible, and more. About Riddle of Spirit and Bone The discovery of a skeleton buried beneath a city sidewalk leads a group of student archaeologists to the nineteenth century spiritualist movement and the journey of three women seeking answers from beyond the grave. As the past collides with the present, layers of time peel back to reveal long-buried secrets of loss, love, and murder.Author bio: Carolyn Korsmeyer’s previous two novels include a narrative set in Jane Austen’s England and a mystery set in Krakow at the turn of the millennium. She lives in Buffalo, New York, where half of the dual timeline of Riddle of Spirit and Bone takes place.

In this episode of Bookable Space, we're joined by Megan Mary. Megan reads to us from The Dream Haunters: A Metaphysical Mystery of Magick. Book 1 of the Witches of Maple Hollow Trilogy. We talk about writing spaces, the importance of writing and reflecting on dreams, and more. About the book: Hannah Skye receives a cryptic letter from her missing Aunt Jewelia. Her experience of a recurring pumpkin patch dream unfolds into a spiritual journey to Maple Hollow, a mysterious island of eternal autumn, where she discovers the mystical Skye Manor and her magickal family legacy.About the author: Megan Mary is an international bestselling metaphysical author of the Witches of Maple Hollow trilogy, dreamworker and host of the Women's Dream Enlightenment podcast. She founded Inner Realms Publishing, holds an MA and BA in English Literature and is pursuing her PhD in Metaphysical Sciences. 

In this episode of Bookable Space, we're joined by Wendy Pratt. Wendy reads from The Ghost Lake and talks about what she learned about herself and the world around us while writing this moving memoir about grief, place, and the natural world.About the author:Wendy Pratt is a poet, author, editor and workshop facilitator living and working on the North Yorkshire coast, where she grew up. She is the author of five collections of poetry. Her latest collection When I Think of My Body as a Horse (Smith|Doorstop Books) won the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet award in 2021. She is the founder and editor in chief of Spelt Magazine, and runs courses and workshops at York Centre for Lifelong Learning.About the book:A memoir of grief, nature and ancestry in rural Yorkshire.I am setting out on a pilgrimage through an ancient landscape.I will begin at my daughter’s grave. Paleolake Flixton is an extinct lake in North Yorkshire. Human occupation of the site dates back thousands of years to prehistoric times. Over the millennia, the vast lake disappeared, turning to wetland and peaty fields. Today all that is left of it is a watermark.Wendy Pratt brings the reader on a pilgrimage around the ghost lake, to locations that have acted as journey markers in her own life. While traversing forests and fenland, she reflects on the process of finding belonging in nature as a woman who exists in a series of liminal spaces – as a working-class writer, an infertile woman in a fertile world and a bereaved mother in a society focused on children.An early draft of The Ghost Lake was longlisted for the 2021 Nan Shepherd Prize.

In this engaging episode of Bookable Space, host Yvonne Battle-Felton is joined by Marcia Hutchinson reading The Mercy Step.About the Author After attending Oxford University and working as a lawyer in the City Marcia Hutchinson relocated back to Yorkshire where she founded and ran educational publishing company Primary Colours from 1997 - 2014. She was awarded an MBE for services to Cultural Diversity in 2010 and is now a full time writer.About the bookThe Mercy Step follows precocious child Mercy from birth to her relationships with her family in 1960's Bradford. If she had her way it would just be Mercy and her mother but her siblings and her fear-inducing father keep getting in the way. She responds by living in her imagination with her faithfull Dolly.About the hostYvonne Battle-Felton is an award-winning author, academic, editor, podcaster, host, creative producer, and writer. Her debut, Remembered (Dialogue Books, Blackstone Publishing) was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2019) and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2020). Yvonne has six titles in Penguin Random House’s The Ladybird series. Yvonne is former Senior Commissioning Editor at Hachette’s John Murray Press and is the Academic Director of Creative Writing at Cambridge University. Winner of The Shirley Jackson Award (novel), Curdle Creek (2024 Dialogue Books, Henry Holt), a gothic horror inspired by Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, is her second novel. Yvonne is a podcaster, author, literary event organizer, event host, and lover of stories. 

In this episode of Bookable Space, host Yvonne Battle-Felton is joined by A.C. Adams reading from Chasing Shadows. It's a heartfelt discussion about family, fictions, writing, and more.About the BookWhen renowned professor Dr. Aidan Ryan vanishes without explanation, he leaves behind a haunting message revealing he has a new life and can never return. His devastated daughter Sofia embarks on a global search to uncover the truth behind her father’s disappearance. What she finds is more shocking than she could have imagined—a web of family secrets and lies that challenges everything she thought she knew.BIOA.C. Adams is the nom de plume of co-authors Anthony Leigh Adams and Christina Adams. They have written and produced film and television projects for studios including Disney, ABC, CBS, NBC, and OWN. For more information about Chasing Shadows and A.C. Adams’s other projects, visit adamsentertainment.com.Links to Buy the Chasing Shadows Book and AudiobookAmazonBarnes & NobleApple BooksChasing Shadows Book TrailerAuthor’s Websitehttp://adams-entertainment.comAbout the hostYvonne Battle-Felton is an author, academic, editor, podcaster, host, creative producer, and writer. Her debut, Remembered (Dialogue Books, Blackstone Publishing) was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2019) and the Not the Booker, and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2020). Yvonne has six titles in Penguin Random House’s The Ladybird series. Curdle Creek (2024 Dialogue Books, Henry Holt), a gothic horror inspired by Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, is her second novel and has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Awards. Follow Yvonne on Substack on Why I Write: Yvonne Battle-Felton

In this engaging episode, we’re joined by Kelechi Okafor. Kelechi reads to us from her debut novel, Awakened. We talk about adventures, writing future present, and more.About the AuthorKelechi Okafor is a Nigerian-born, London-based writer of fiction, journalism, stage and screen. Her work explores global issues through an anti-colonial, anti-white supremacy, and anti-heteropatriarchy lens. In 2024, she launched her subscription platform, Keleidoscope, and opened ‘Child of Light’, a children’s home and resource centre in Nigeria. Known online as @Kelechnekoff and affectionately as ‘just a Baby Girl,’ Kelechi draws creative strength from writers like Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, bell hooks and Audre Lorde, and deities including Oshun and Yemoja. Her voice echoes a legacy of radical storytelling.About the bookIn a near-future London where technology affects everything from our bodies to our politics, journalist Pels Badmus wants to make a difference. She’s desperate to solve a spate of disappearances of young Black children but her boss doesn’t want to hear it. Instead, he assigns her to cover protests linked to sacred Spirit Vine rituals in Benin. Pels finds herself in West Africa, agreeing to the assignment in the hope she can leverage it later. She’s also trying to ignore the strange, ethereal dreams she’s been having... and when Pels takes the Spirit Vine herself, she experiences something divine; something that points to an unfulfilled destiny that could change the course of her life.About the hostYvonne Battle-Felton is an author, academic, editor, podcaster, host, creative producer, and writer. Her debut, Remembered (Dialogue Books, Blackstone Publishing) was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2019) and the Not the Booker, and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2020). Yvonne has six titles in Penguin Random House’s The Ladybird series. Curdle Creek (2024 Dialogue Books, Henry Holt), a gothic horror inspired by Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, is her second novel and has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Awards. Follow Yvonne on Substack on Why I Write: Yvonne Battle-Felton