Two-Book publishing deal for Creative Writing Diploma alumna

Elisabeth Gifford, an alumna of our Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing, has landed a two-book publishing deal with Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books.

The first book, The Secrets of the Sea House, is set in the Hebrides and is based on a real letter to the Times newspaper in 1809 reporting a sighting of a mermaid by a Victorian schoolmaster.

Says Gifford, 'the novel is based on the work of Gaelic historian John MacAulay and his theory that the mermaid sightings may have been linked to Nordic eskimo style kayakers who once visited the Hebrides -- as well as extensive research into the Highland clearances and twentieth century crofting.'

The book, according to Gifford, was 'begun at Rewley House and the coffee shops of Oxford.'

Her second second book (working title A Northern Inheritance) is a family saga based on the discovery of what one of the author's relatives did in wartime Madrid to aid refugees escaping from Nazi-held France.

'We knew he had an OBE, but never really knew why,' says Gifford. 'A lot of this book was also written on the diploma course.'

'I really adored doing the diploma,' adds Gifford. The Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing is a two-year, cross-genre course that meets weekly in Oxford.

Those attending our 2013 Continuing Education Open Day on 26 September can hear a reading by Elisabeth and two other authors associated with the Diploma course, alumna Margaret Keeping, and course tutor Jeremy Hughes.

Elisabeth Gifford grew up in a vicarage in the industrial Midlands. She studied French literature and world religions at Leeds University before turning to our Diploma in Creative Writing course. From there she went on to the MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway College.

Full information about both books and about the author is available on the author's website: http://www.elisabethgifford.com

And to read a blog post about the book on the publisher's website, please see atlantic-books.co.uk/content/inspiration-behind-secrets-sea-house

Secrets of the Sea House

Scotland, 1860. Reverend Alexander Ferguson, naïve and newly-ordained, takes up his new parish, a poor, isolated patch on the Hebridean island of Harris. His time on the island will irrevocably change the course of his life, but the white house on the edge of the dunes keeps its silence long after Alexander departs.

It will be more than a century before the Sea House reluctantly gives up its secrets. Ruth and Michael buy the grand but dilapidated building and begin to turn it into a home for the family they hope to have. Their dreams are marred by a shocking discovery. The tiny bones of a baby are buried beneath the house; the child's fragile legs are fused together - a mermaid child. Who buried the bones? And why? Ruth needs to solve the mystery of her new home - but the answers to her questions may lie in her own past.

Based on a real nineteenth-9century letter to The Times in which a Scottish clergyman claimed to have seen a mermaid, Secrets of the Sea House is an epic, sweeping tale of loss and love, hope and redemption, and how we heal ourselves with the stories we tell.

Published 6 August 2013