Inklings Book Club

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Welcome back to our Women's Prize 2026 spotlight series.

Today we’re joined by Marcia Hutchinson, whose debut novel The Mercy Step is shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize and just won the Discovery Prize at the British Book Awards! Following the life of a child from the womb to age eleven, Marcia Hutchinson crafts a sharply-witted and tender portrait of a young girl’s quiet rebellion in 1960s Bradford.

Marcia also founded Primary Colours, a multicultural educational publishing and training company based in Huddersfield, who helped create resources on cultural education, for example celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Empire Windrush arriving in the UK. 

Marcia was awarded an MBE in the Queens Birthday Honours list in 2010 for services to cultural diversity.
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Welcome to our special Inklings Book Club series spotlighting each of the Women's Prize for Fiction shortlisted authors. First up, we’re meeting Rozie Kelly, author of Kingfisher. This is her debut novel, about an academic married to a man who becomes infatuated with a female poet. Kelly finds beauty in the messiness of being human in this meditation on grief, power, desire, our search for identity, how we love and the consequences when we fall short.

Rozie Kelly was shortlisted for the PFD Queer Fiction Prize 2023 and was one of the eight participants in the inaugural Prototype Development Programme 2024. Her debut novel Kingfisher won the NorthBound Book Award before being shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026.
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Today we’re joined by Anders Lustgarten whose new book Kill Billionaire follows a wise beyond her years 14 year old girl from rural Australia called Kayla, who starts taking down billionaires. I was so intrigued to ask Anders about crafting this character, and his outlook on the world.

He is a talented playwright – with 12 original plays under his belt. Now he’s turning his pen to novel writing – and he’s here to tell us all about it. 

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