About - brb, writing a novel ~ by abby

Cheers for stopping by!

Hey there! I’m Abby. I’m an award-winning author, community arts producer, and queer Br-Irish Grimsbearian loss mum and goalkeeper. As a novelist, I’m best known for Golden Boy —"a grippingly innovative" coming-of-age story with a "radical non-binary, pro-intersex message" (Hida Viloria, Autostraddle).

Golden Boy is published in 9 languages and recipient of numerous accolades, including the American Library Association Alex Award, Best LGBT Debut LAMBDA Finalist, Booklist Top 10 First Novel, and School Library Journal Best Book. Film Rights were sold to Duck Soup/BBC Films in 2017, but lapsed in 2024. Foreword Reviews gave my follow-up Dead Girls 5 stars, calling it "a heart stopping horror novel and a frightening coming-of-age story". It was Brad Listi’s Book of the Month pick for The Nervous Breakdown. GQ dubbed my debut novel Flick a "cult classic".

My other creative work is eclectic. I’ve worked as a screenwriter, presenter, producer, journalist, director, and musician. I currently present and write for the political podcast, From Below The Balcony (catch reels on my Instagram). Past projects include the Golden Boy script at BBC Films, ACE-funded podcast Writing Coercive Control, editorship of I Hope You Like Feminist Rants zine, journalism for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Glamour, Oh Comely, and The Huffington Post, section editorship at Phoenix magazine, and lead singer/lyricist of the band Girlboy, with our track ‘Jennifer Lawrence’ featuring in BBC Introducing’s Top Ten Tracks of the Year, two years running. I’ve been a Moviescope One to Watch actress, a past juror for the British Independent Film Awards and Nibfest Write-a-thon, and a recipient of awards from The Authors Foundation and K Blundell Trust. I’m a member of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain.

My creative health community arts practice, IRL Creative Health, launched in June 2025 with an 8-part workshop series on journaling for fiction and non-fiction at Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation St Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green. IRL Journaling now has a six-month residency (September-March) at the charity, and an inaugural IRL Crafts for Change event will seat 50 to fundraise for food aid in Gaza. Join us here. My own journaling practice, documented here on Substack, explores my experience with trying to conceive, recurrent miscarriage, and stillbirth, and draws inspiration from Japanese Ehon, 90s DIY culture, and collage aesthetic.

After a writing hiatus due to baby loss, I received Arts Council England x British National Lottery funding in 2024 to construct a novel (documented in my first posts on Substack), which found a home with Abi Fellows at DHH Literary in summer 2025. I am currently working with Abi to submit several literary projects to editors, while developing Dead Girls for TV. In autumn 2025, my writing will appear in forthcoming issues of Ache and Art & Type magazines.

In my downtime, I play football for Judas F.C., get silly little coffees, play Scrabble with friends, take walks, crochet, worry about making rent, and love my kids more than anything in the world. My character is kind, tender, and when you get to know me, quite funny. If I were on C4’s The Dog House (as a dog, obviously), they’d say, “she’s had a really hard time, but she’s got so much love to give.” I’d love to know what dog breed you think I would be, after having read all the way down this page, because I’m umming and ahhing about it. Let me know, perhaps in a comment on a post.