In September 2006, Shetland Arts Wordplay book festival will welcome its second writer in residence to the isles. Novelist Susanna Jones will be in Shetland for four weeks to deliver a series of workshops on prose fiction. Shetland Arts are now calling for writers to get in touch to sign up in advance for the course of practical writing sessions and to inform the planning of the content.

“At this stage we’re just letting folk who are working on prose fiction know that Susanna Jones will be in Shetland in late August,” says Literature Development Officer Alex Cluness, “and I’d like people who are writing novels and short stories who would be interested in the workshops to drop me a line to express interest so that I can try to shape the workshops to their needs. Susanna is running an Arvon workshop this summer which looks at the different aspects of fiction writing, like characterization and setting, as well as redrafting and chapter work – and that’s very much the kind of thing we’d like to replicate here. We really are delighted that such an accomplished and acclaimed novelist as Susanna has agreed to visit Shetland. It is something of a coup!”

Susanna Jones was born in 1967 and grew up in Yorkshire. She studied drama at London University where she became interested in Japanese culture after studying Japanese Noh theatre. This led to her living and working in Japan for several years as a teacher of English in Nagoya, and later in Tokyo, where she also worked as a radio script editor. While living in Japan she started her first novel, The Earthquake Bird (2001), a murder story set in Tokyo. This novel won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and a Betty Trask Award.

Her second novel, Water Lily (2003), is a tale of suspense focusing on the relationship between a British man and a Japanese woman, whose paths cross on the ferry to Shanghai. Writing of her great skill at weaving tension and characterisation, A. N. Wilson, the noted English critic, has said that 'Jones slithers her sharpened icicle between your ribs before you realise you have been stabbed.'

Susanna Jones studied for an MA in Writing at the University of Manchester and currently lives in Brighton. She is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway University of London alongside Professor Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, who is the Director of the University’s Creative Writing Course. She has recently completed her third novel. Her work has been translated into over twenty languages.

During her residency Susanna Jones will also meet with readers groups to discuss her own work, as well as the process of getting published and the marketing of fiction. She will also read from her own work at Wordplay 2006.

Speaking of her impending stint as Shetland Writer in Residence, Susanna Jones says, “I'm very excited about coming to work with Shetland writers. It should be a real opportunity to generate discussion and share ideas about fiction writing. This will be my first visit to Shetland and I'm sure it will be a learning experience as much as a teaching experience for me. I know there's lots of writing talent in Shetland and I'm looking forward to seeing it first-hand in the workshops.”

Shetland writers who are interested in taking part in the series of prose fiction workshops in September are asked to contact Literature Development Officer Alex Cluness at Shetland Arts on 01595 694001.