The Guardian tips Aber graduate as one of 2015’s ‘New Faces of Fiction’

Kate Hamer, one of The Guardian’s ‘New Faces of Fiction’ for 2015

Aberystwyth University Creative Writing graduate, Kate Hamer has been tipped by the Guardian as one of the most promising new authors of 2015 in their ‘New Faces of Fiction’, a list of the first time novelists they believe will “make a splash”.

Kate’s story, The Girl in the Red Coat is described a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood inspired by the image of a little girl, in a red coat, lost in a wood.

Kate said: “Being told I was one of the Guardian's 'New faces of fiction 2015' was incredibly exciting and just a little bit scary because it felt so huge.”

The story of abduction that is central to the book is a very real fear for any parent according to Kate, herself a parent of two grown-up children: “All parents have it, I certainly do”, she said.

Growing up in Pembrokeshire, she harboured an aspiration to write for a living but worked for a decade in television, producing documentaries before embarking on a Masters in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University.

Kate found the “commitment” to showing her work to others, and allowing her work to be read and judged, one of the most useful parts of the creative writing course.

She described her time at Aberystwyth as giving her “the opportunity to experiment with and explore my personal writing style. I came across tutors who were passionate, open to ideas and talented, and this was exactly what I needed at that stage in my writing career.”

The Girl in the Red Coat is due to be published on 5^th March by Faber, priced at £12.99.

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