"I will forever have a soft spot in my dark heart for writing about weird shit, monsters and the uncanny."

Meet one of my creative heroes, Jane Claire Bradley, as we countdown to the release of her debut novel, Dear Neighbour (out 15th June 2023!)

Hello you,

I have a gift for you this week! An interview with the incomparable, Jane Claire Bradley.

Jane is an off-the-scale talented, award-winning, queer, working-class writer, performer and educator based in Manchester.

She also happens to be a creative hero of mine and has been such an incredible support, influence and cheerleader in my personal creative journey. (Forever grateful to you, Jane!)

Dear Neighbour, Jane’s debut novel will be gracing our lives, hearts and shelves on 15th June.

I’m absolutely BUZZING to read this book which has been described as “a love letter to the power of community.”

And if you like what you read, you will absolutely love Jane’s Substack and her other writing which you can find in many places including So Long As You Write: Women on writing (Dear Damsels, 2022) and Test Signal: The best contemporary northern fiction (Dead Ink/Bloomsbury, 2021).

It’s my utmost pleasure to share some of Jane’s wisdom and more about Dear Neighbour with you today.

Enjoy!

Janelle x

Jane Claire Bradley (she/her) - writer, performer, teacher, inspo

Hi Jane!

Thanks for being my first ever Substack VIP guest.

What have you done recently that you’re most proud of?

JCB: Written a ridiculously unhinged short story about lesbian cannibals. Dear Neighbour is commercial fiction, but I will forever have a soft spot in my dark heart for writing about weird shit, monsters and the uncanny.

My new year's resolution this year was to be bolder and more unapologetic in my writing, and giving myself permission to follow my curiosity and desires to some truly batshit places is an ongoing practice – but one I'm finding infinitely rewarding.

What does quitting mean to you?

JCB: If it's done honestly, it can be an act of love and integrity to quit. Knowing when to walk away from something can take a massive amount of self-trust, but sometimes it's what we need to do. Other times the truest self-love is in practising the grit and tenacity needed to see something through!

Having an honest, compassionate relationship with yourself is gold for so many reasons, but not least because it empowers you to make those decisions from a true and self-trusting place.

What are you excited about at the moment?

JCB: My decade-plus as director of For Books' Sake means I'm now incredibly lucky and grateful to count some truly gloriously talented authors amongst my pals, and I love getting to read my mates' books – especially when they're so bloody good!

Right now, I can't wait to get my hands on the latest novels by my brilliant friends Claire Askew (The Dead Don't Speak, out 8^th June) and Holly Ringland (The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding came out in Australia last year but it's finally out here in the UK in July!)

What’s your latest obsession?

JCB: Like everyone, I've been incredibly into following the final season of Succession, and am genuinely bereft that it's over. The entire thing has been an absolute masterclass in character, dialogue, and how creative projects can become more than the sum of their parts. Media that incites such intense reactions always intrigues me, and the surrounding worlds of those things always have such brilliant ride-or-die levels of passion and creativity – I've read some amazing Succession fanfic and the Firecrotch & Normcore podcast have absolutely smashed it this season with their cast and crew interviews.

Also: my love for Arian Moayed's portrayal of Stewy Hosseini goes deep, and his line in the finale – "I like weird sex, I like bad drugs, I'm a very complicated individual" – just makes me want more... a spin-off, fanfic, anything, I'll be here and waiting!

JCB: Please tell us about Dear Neighbour! Where can we pre-order?

Dear Neighbour tells the story of Alice, a single mum living in a Leeds council house, her next-door neighbour Bill, a widower still grieving his wife’s death a decade earlier, and the other residents of their street. The neighbours are strangers to each other until they all receive identical letters from the council telling them their tenancies are being terminated, and the book takes place over the four weeks notice they've been given to get out.

It's a book that explores the ways we navigate, survive and resist austerity, how we build connection, community and empathy with those around us, and how we define family and home. In their various ways, the residents of Leodis Street are all survivors, but isolated in that, and I loved writing about the various ways they bridge (or deepen!) those divides over the course of those twenty-eight days.

You can pre-order it from your fave indie bookshop or Amazon / Waterstones / WHSmiths / Blackwells / Hive / Audible

Cover of Dear Neighbour by Jane Claire Bradley

What’s a line that you love from Dear Neighbour?

JCB: Such a good question! I've been starting to think about extracts to share at my upcoming events, but standalone sentences are even harder!

But let's go for a daft one, because I love this moment when one character asks another:

"Did all those people coming into A&E with Barbies up their bums or whatever finally make you crack?"

What book should I add to my TBR pile?

JCB: I just finished Kate Reed Petty's True Story and found it totally compulsive reading; original, unsettling and so innovative in the ways it plays with form, genre and the unreliable narrator trope (always something I'm here for).

It traces the aftermath of an insidious high school rumour, exploring its fallout and grappling with the ways we can become defined and haunted by the past. The slipperiness of memories and stories is an endlessly fascinating topic to me, so I devoured this at breakneck speed.

Do you have a writing craft tip or a revision tip you could share?

JCB: I'm a massive fan of using Write or Die to blast out my first draft without over-thinking or editing as I go. I try to use Jessica Brody's approach of 'writing forward' as much as I can, along with her other fast drafting techniques, so I'm very grateful to you for originally signposting me towards her work!

I've experimented with a million different tools over time but at the moment I'm loving Trello as a way of having an overview of different projects and where each one is up to, as well as keeping research, images, links and other bits and bobs all in the same place.

Where can we find you and your work?

I have a website, Goodreads and Instagram. Londoners can see me at Hachette's upcoming Pride in Writing event (June 6th) and I'll be launching Dear Neighbour with an event in Manchester on publication day, June 15^th 2023. (I’ll be there!)

And here is Jane’s Substack which you should subscribe to this moment if you don’t already get her love letters.

Please say hey and good literary luck to Jane below!