That’s when we independent booksellers become a new author’s greatest friend.

If I genuinely believe in a new book’s quality then here’s what happens. First I start hand-selling the book to anyone who’ll listen. Then a little hand-written review appears on its shelf and a few copies appear on the main table or the counter. Then customers start coming in saying that I recommended some great new book to their friend and it had a blue cover and the word “Desert” or maybe “Sand” in the title, and could I show it to them. That’s when I know the customers love the book too so I’ve benefi ted again because I’ve increased their trust in our judgment and introduced them to a positive reading experience. So then we ask the author to come and read to still more of our customers. And more books sell. By now, hopefully this is being replicated all over the country until, ultimately, authors, readers and booksellers are entwined in one mutual never-ending love-up that results in more sales, more book deals and – above all – more enjoyable reading.

Of course, if the new writer or poet we’ve discovered also happens to have graduated from Bath Spa then that’s better still. And the writing that follows shows how frequently that is likely to be the case in the years to come.

Writing in the bite-sized form in which it appears here is notoriously diffi cult to write and, indeed, to sell. But I’m sure every reader will agree that this multi-genre collection is an inspiring pleasure to read. Chapter by chapter we get to sample a vast variety of styles as we’re bounced from comical exchanges in an oppressive and backstabbing offi ce environment to Norman knights patrolling the Northumbrian hills, or from twins born under the suspicion of sainthood in a distant land to a sisterly feud revealed in an opening paragraph that leads to break-neck account of their often parallel lives.

It makes me proud of our city to know that this bounty of superb new writing that follows has all emerged from the Bath Spa University’s peerless Creative Writing MA course, and I look forward to shoving the published works of some of these budding authors into the eager mitts of Bath’s readers in the future.