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Anna Bailey

@annabaileywrites

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Sunday Times bestselling author of TALL BONES, OUR LAST WILD DAYS + WASTELAND GIRLS
Co-host of @bordeauxqueerbookclub 📚

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‘The Girl in the Ground’ is one of the stories I most enjoyed working on for WASTELAND GIRLS.

It took me two years to write, which is longer than I’ve spent on most novel drafts. I would abandon it, only to creep back months later, realising every time how much I still loved these characters and this weird little world I’d made for them. They were still haunting the rocks and the caves and the highways, and they wanted me to finish their story.

The whole process taught me so much about short stories as a separate art form to novels, but I also learned how to give a story, regardless of length, its breathing room to develop - something that feels like a privilege in today’s publishing world. Working on this collection, I re-acquainted myself with the joy of writing.

WASTELAND GIRLS and all the weird girls therein hit the shelves July 30th, available from @doubledayukbooks 🌵💀🦂

Footage was filmed by yours truly, playing passenger princess between Texas and New Mexico 📹
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🏷️ #bookstagram | #bookreel | #booksbooksbooks | short stories | queer books | weird fiction | #wastelandgirls | desert gothic by @annabaileywrites

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3 months ago

US paperbacks for OUR LAST WILD DAYS are landing August 18th 🇺🇸

So many funky things have happened since the first OLWD hardbacks dropped last year, including speaking at some incredible festivals, a whole bunch of gorgeous translations, and getting to meet my readers in person this time! Also I finally managed to grow out that terrible bob.

Big thanks to my team at @atriabooks , I still love this cover to bits 🐊🔮💀🌙🐍🕯️
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🏷️ #bookstagram | #authorsofinstagram | #ourlastwilddays | queer authors | queer books | thrillers | southern gothic | #booksbooksbooks | #unboxing by @annabaileywrites

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2 months ago

Thank you for having me @sandonliteraturefestival ☕️🍂📚

It was a pleasure chatting with @markedwardsauthor on Sunday and meeting some of our wonderful readers.

Until next year!
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🏷️ our last wild days | #authorlife | #ourlastwilddays | #bookstagram | #bookish taken in Sandon Hall by @annabaileywrites

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2 hours ago

Dublin (and a bit of Dún Laoghaire)

I’ll be honest, we’ve had a really tense summer. Forest fires and health scares and career worries. It’s not lost on me how fortunate we are to be able to step away for a little while and catch our breath. Even while taking work video calls on the move and submitting synopses and never quite managing to escape the reach of our respective inboxes, it’s been a much needed reprieve to get to spend some time in this gorgeous country we both adore, and to do so together. It’s a good world, I know it is, because my wife is in it. taken in Dublin, Ireland by @annabaileywrites

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12 days ago

Belfast I love you 💚 taken in Belfast by @annabaileywrites

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15 days ago

Work’s in a weird place. In my head, I’m in the hills I cut my teeth on.
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. by @annabaileywrites

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a month ago

Biggest thanks to everyone who joined us last night to chat about WASTELAND GIRLS at @damnfine_bookstore ❤️‍🔥

Thank you Fiona for hosting and for the truly addictive cocktail 🍹 and to all of you who adopted one of my mother-in-law’s little cacti 🌵

It’s such a joy to get to yap about short stories, but especially with such a brilliant crowd. It was the best night.
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🏷️ #bookstagram | #authorsofinstagram | #wastelandgirls | #bookish taken in Damn Fine Bookstore by @annabaileywrites

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a month ago

Big thanks to the fabulous booksellers at @hatchardscheltenham and @cheltenham_waterstones for being so lovely when I dropped by yesterday.

Signed copies of WASTELAND GIRLS available now ✍️
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🏷️ #wastelandgirls #bookstagram #booksbooksbooks #authorsofinstagram short stories #bookish by @annabaileywrites

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2 months ago

THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER by Stephen Graham Jones 🦬

A history and a horror, in so many ways.

Something strange is afoot in early 1900s Montana. Bodies are turning up skinned on the plains, the local clergyman is haunted by an awful past, and the church receives an unusual visitor - a Blackfeet Indian named Good Stab, who has come for confession. So unfolds Good Stab’s history of his people, the decimation of the buffalo, and how he came to be what he is: immortal, a blood drinker, the avenger of the land he knew before it was swallowed by America.

I’ve read a few of Stephen Graham Jones’ books now, and I’ve loved them all, but this is by far my favourite. I hesitate to call it vampire fiction, since the word itself is pointedly not used in the novel, but it’s easily the most creative entry into that genre. The descriptions are completely immersive, the body horror is delicious, but the standout for me was the way SGJ writes about indigenous history from an indigenous perspective. I wept reading it.

This was a hybrid read for me with the audiobook, which I really recommend, the narrators are all excellent 🎧
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🏷️ #bookstagram | horror books | book reviews | #booksbooksbooks | #bookish by @annabaileywrites

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a month ago

OUR LAST WILD DAYS is out in paperback in the US 🇺🇸🐊 Can’t believe 10 years have passed since that second photo! It feels like looking at somebody else. If my first novel was an exorcism of my old life, this one is a love letter to it - to wild, lonesome country, to little dusty towns far from the highway, to Southern hospitality (and secrecy), to fierce creatures and even fiercer girls.

Big love to all of you who’ve read and supported this one so far 💚 US friends, she’s out today from @atriabooks wherever you get your literature.
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🏷️ #bookstagram #booksbooksbooks #ourlastwilddays #southerngothic #authorsofinstagram by @annabaileywrites

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2 months ago

Really looking forward to @sandonliteraturefestival in October, where I’ll be appearing with Mark Edwards, discussing Our Last Wild Days and his latest book One of the Family.

UK folks, hope to see some of you there! 📚🌿

Weekend, day & event tickets are available via Sandon Hall’s website 🎟️
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🏷️ author events | #bookstagram | #ourlastwilddays | #authorsofinstagram | #bookish | literature festivals by @annabaileywrites

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a month ago

West Country kid 🌲 Stopping in my wild, green home while I wait to hear back about a manuscript I wrote earlier this year, one I really love. Feeling a bit nervous about the outcome so I’m hiding in the trees.
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. taken in Gloucestershire by @annabaileywrites

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2 months ago