Tinder Press acquires Escape Routes

Tinder Press has acquired ESCAPE ROUTES, a debut story collection from former bookseller and UEA graduate Naomi Ishiguro.

ESCAPE ROUTES is an exuberantly original collection which taps into a fascination with all things fairy tale, focusing on characters trapped by their own limitations or others’ expectations of them.  Tinder Press Publisher Mary-Anne Harrington said, ‘What impressed me particularly about ESCAPE ROUTES was the way these wonderfully varied stories resonate together as a collection. There’s something delightfully fresh and contemporary about Naomi’s magical take on the world, like a kind of bittersweet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’m incredibly excited to be launching her career as a writer here at Tinder Press.’

Naomi Ishiguro worked for two years as a bookseller and bibliotherapist at Mr. B’s Emporium in Bath, and studied for a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.  ‘These stories really started from talking to customers every day at Mr B’s. I began to see how books become our “escape routes” out of the ordinary world – out of drudgery, mundanity, out of set ways of thinking and our own emotional limitations. This isn’t a book about books, but it’s definitely something I wrote for all the readers I talked to, who inspired me in showing me just how magical and important storytelling’s flights of imagination and empathy can be.’

Mary-Anne Harrington acquired British Commonwealth rights from Peter Straus at RCW. Tinder Press will publish in hardback, e-book and audio in February 2020.