The Girl In My Attic. Bob Fear
Spotlight Profile 2013
This year’s winner was Bob Fear with his dark and beguiling comic novel.
When lonely Malcolm discovers a giant, red-haired girl called Sasha living in his attic, his careful, well-ordered existence is turned upside down. The pair form an unlikely bond, but the vicious bullies on their street won’t leave them alone.
Bob Fear is the editor of virgin.com, the global website for the Virgin Group. He helped Richard Branson launch all of his social media channels – from Twitter to YouTube to Facebook. Prior to this, he was editor of jamieoliver.com where he produced all Jamie Oliver’s podcasts and looked after his online community.
Overview
The synopsis and first page of The Girl in my Attic stood out for their freshness, quirkiness and immediacy. The core idea fits in with a growing genre of fiction that attempts to tackle serious contemporary issues (mental health and bullying of people with disabilities) with empathy and humour. In the mentoring process we explored various narrative conventions before moving on to ways in which the central drama could be most effectively developed.
Bob’s mentor was Marion Urch.
Read Bob’s blog post on the mentoring process.
