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Press

Orbital

My new novel, Orbital, will be published on 2nd November 2023 and can be pre-ordered here.

Six astronauts rotate in their spacecraft above the earth. They are there to collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?

A magnificent, thunderous work

Nathan Filer

I don’t think I’ve read anything else with such love for its characters and such clarity about the state of the planet

Sarah Moss

‘One of the most beautiful novels I have read in a very long time’

Mark Haddon

‘A radiant explosion of a novel’

Jamie Quatro

‘An awe-inspiring and humbling love letter to earth’

Max Porter

‘A gorgeous song of praise from on high’

Mike McCormack

‘A lush description of the gorgeous earth’

Daisy Hildyard
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Press

Writing course at Las Chimeneas

A week-long residential course/retreat in southern Spain

8th – 15th September 2023

£1400 per person (or £1200 pp if sharing a room).

A week-long prose course/retreat run by Sam Harvey and Emma Hooper, for writers of novels, short stories and non-fiction.

The week will consist of morning small-group workshops (max. 8 people), afternoon craft sessions, one-to-one tutorials, evening Q&As and readings, and dedicated solitary writing time.

The fee includes all accommodation and food at the lovely Las Chimeneas in the Alpajarras mountains of southern Spain. It also includes your course tuition, and transfers to and from the airport in either Granada or Almeria.

This is the third time Sam and Emma have run this retreat (albeit previously at Villa Lugara in Italy); each time it’s been a brilliant mix of intense, focussed work and relaxing, informal eating, drinking, swimming, walking, talking with fellow writers in an extraordinary place. Las Chimeneas was numbered among the ten best mountain hideaways in Europe.

To book, or simply to chat about it if you need more information, please contact Emma and David Illsley at Las Chimeneas:  info@laschimeneas.com

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Course outline:
  • Mentored workshop every morning Monday to Thursday: A session in which students share and discuss each other’s work, led and directed by a tutor.*
  • Technique and Craft lecture Monday and Tuesday afternoons: A talk and/or workshop focusing on honing a particular aspect of writing.
  • Writing and walking workshop on Friday morning. (Gentle and suitable for all athletic abilities.)
  • One-to-one tutorials with Sam and Emma for each student on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons: A chance to get focused individual feedback on a piece of your work, as well as to address any specific questions or concerns you might have regarding your writing.
  • Informal friendly evening events (with wine!) including readings of your own work, and an “ask me anything” industry and career Q&A session with your tutors.
  • Plenty of writing time in between sessions.
  • Plenty of time outside of structured sessions to talk to the tutors (and of course other students) about all-things-writing.

* Students should have a minimum of around 8,000 words, in total, of a work (or works) in progress for workshopping and tutorial sessions.

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Press

Writing Course at Villa Lugura, Italy

Progressing Your Prose: A week-long residential writing course at the beautiful Villa Lugara in Italy – 11th – 18th June 2022

Spend a week completely dedicated to your craft, being inspired by the scenery of Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy and nourished by its sun, cuisine and wine. With a strong focus on your own goals and work, award-winning authors Samantha Harvey and Emma Hooper will guide you through a course of mentored workshops, craft and technique lectures, and one-to-one tutorials, as well as informal industry advice sessions.

Extracurricular time can be spent writing in your own personal studio space in the villa’s historic stables, or exploring the surrounding landscape, rich with inspiring history, architecture, flora and fauna.

Pricing:

Tuition fee (EUR): €460 to be paid directly to Emma and Sam.
Villa Lugara Fee (EUR): €960 to €1075 depending on room chosen (€795 to share a twin room). 
The fee includes accommodation, all meals, wine, airport transfer and studio space.
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Press

New Yorker Review

The Late-Night Revelations in a Memoir of Insomnia

Katy Waldman’s Review of ‘The Shapeless Unease’ in the New Yorker
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Interviews Press

The Millions Interview

An interview with Nick Ripatrazone for The Millions

‘In The Shapeless Unease, Samantha Harvey’s mesmerizing new book, she captures what W.B. Yeats calls “the moment of contemplation, the moment when we are both asleep and awake”—in its most melancholy and purgatorial senses.’

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Press

The New York Times Review

A review of The Shapeless Unease in the New York Times

‘[The book] both cools and warms, lofts and lulls, settling gradually on its inhabitant with an ethereal solidity.’

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Articles Press

Essay in Time Magazine

I Had Severe Insomnia Long Before the Pandemic. Here’s What I’ve Learned From Those Sleepless Nights

An essay written for Time Magazine on insomnia and uncertainty

‘I dreamed a while back that Boris Johnson had died. In the dream I felt sad, and when I woke I felt glad that I’d been sad, that my compassion had extended to someone whose values I don’t generally share. I went back to sleep and dreamed that my partner had been cut in half lengthways by a Cylon. I woke and my feet were tingling with sorrow. I went back to sleep and woke later to silence.’

Read the essay

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Festivals Interviews Press

BookBound 2020 Online Literary Festival

Talking with Sarah Allely and Georgie Codd about ‘shapeless fears’ at the BookBound 2020 Literary Festival

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Interviews

The Spectator Books Podcast

In conversation with Sam Leith on The Shapeless Unease

In this week’s Book Club podcast, Sam’s guest is the novelist Samantha Harvey, whose new book — The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping — is an extraordinarily written, funny and terrifying account of her experience with insomnia. She talks to Sam about the strange contortions that the mind makes when the boundaries between conscious and unconscious thought start to fray, and how writing — as she sees it — saved her from madness.

Presented by Sam Leith.

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Interviews

Adrian Goldberg’s Talk Show

Adrian Goldberg interviews Samantha Harvey about The Shapeless Unease, for his Talk Show podcast