Description
About Writer
‘I do not have a future, and I do not want dreams. My dreams are stories, written by a machine. And I will not think of her.’
Luke Kierley has visited the writer and asked it to exorcise from him all memory of her. Now he has no idea who she was and he must try to find a way to live with a bleeding hole in his memory.
Told in a unique voice that recalls southern gothic, classic horror, and frontier literature, Writer is like nothing you have read before. JM Burgoyne’s debut brings her virtuosic voice alive in a striking and unforgettable meditation on free-will, love, and the lengths we’ll go to avoid pain.
‘A gothic western about a vampyric typewriter’ – delve inside Writer in the authors own words.
Praise for Writer
‘Compulsive, mysterious and unique. Writer gives up its secrets piece by piece and doesn’t let go until the final page.’
Rym Kechacha, author of Dark River
‘Totally unique. It’s a romance, a mystery, and a horror story all at once. With a cowbow protagonist!’ KR Moorhead
‘An amazing, immersive experience. If you like Faulkner or Anna Burns and if you love emotionally complicated stories…and if you don’t mind being scared sometimes….this novel is for you. There isn’t a wasted sentence in this novel and, like Naked Lunch, it alters the way you see life afterwards. A painful and hopeful novel. Highly recommended.’ Ian Nettleton
‘The brilliance in the book is the premise it is based on: how far would you go to forget your pain? A brilliantly spooky and scary book.’ Mish Mash Masala
‘Not so much a novel as an incantation, an extended poem. At times it seems Joycean, but has its own accent, grammar, approach. There is a journey at its heart which the reader is invited to join. It is an invitation not to be resisted.’Christopher Bigsby
‘Part-phantasmagorical fever-dream, part-gothic-western quest, Writer is a high noon between Philip K Dick and William Faulkner with no less than a soul at stake.’
Ashley Stokes, author of GIGANTIC, Unsung Stories
‘If M.R. James or Edgar Allan Poe wrote Don Quixote and set it in the wild west, Writer might be the result. The language is rich, dark as a fresh grave; it has your hand in its bone tight fist. There’s startling image after startling hallucinatory images. Writer is a quest to escape the past drenched in blood-letting.’
Martin Figura
‘Writer is a slippery beast; a sliding puzzle of fatalism, nihilism, love, and the lies we live to avoid living with pain.’
Andrew Hook
‘An astonishing novel. Burgoyne fearlessly unearths the depths of human emotion.’
Kaitlin Jefferys
‘Original…evocative and shocking. I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys being taken out of their literary comfort zone.’
Cathy Burton
‘What a joy to read Writer! Burgoyne writes with impeccable style: each word feels like a branding on the skin.’
Goran Mimica
Audiobook
Listen to JM Burgoyne read the opening section of Writer in this advance preview of the audiobook to follow in the future. Featuring new music by Elizabeth and Jameson.
About the Author

JM Burgoyne; credit Adam Barnes
JM Burgoyne is originally from Hertfordshire. She has a BA and MA from the University of East Anglia. She has had many jobs including administration, teaching, tutoring, community filmmaking, and journalism. She has also volunteered for charities from Ethiopia to The Jungle in Calais. Her key traits, she says, are an inability to work full-time without feeling trapped, and generally feeling bored of something after having done it twice. She lives in Norwich.
Writer Details
Paperback ISBN: 9781912665143
Ebook ISBN: 9781912665150
Published by Story Machine
Publication Date: 05/05/2022
Extent: 256pp
Format: Paperback Original
Jacket Design: Natty Peterkin
Planet Positive Publishing
Story Machine is committed to putting the environment first. This book is printed using processes that are:
Planet Positive Printing means that our books are a little more expensive than they would otherwise be. We believe that this is a small price to pay for the future of our planet.
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