We’ve come to the nearly final stage of our book Keeping Mum. It now seems like quite a long time since we finished writing it, but actually the whole process from our first gathering in the Scottish highlands has taken just one year and one month – almost record time in the book world. We’ve done the thinking, writing, editing, designing, production, and now I type this with a finished copy of the book at my side. What a handsome book it is too. It’s always the exciting bit, holding a real book in your hands, ready for it to make its own way in the world, out by post to supporters, into warehouses and bookshops for whoever will buy and read it. We hope lots of people, because we’re proud of the novel.

So the final stage of making a book, particularly in this case, is to thank everyone who made it possible. And with Unbound, that means all our supporters who got out their wallets and pledged their subscriptions to bring this book into being. I speak for all fifteen of the writers when I say: Thank you so very much, and we hope you will have a good read then tell the world all about it. 

John Simmons