Amanda Hodgkinson celebrates two-book deal with Fig Tree Press

BookShed member Amanda Hodgkinson has signed a two-book deal with Penguin imprint Fig Tree Press.

Fig Tree head Juliet Annan bought world rights to debut novel 22 Britannia Road from agent Rachel Calder at the Sayle Literary Agency. Annan said the novel had echoes of Small Island and Sophie's Choice and is "a powerful novel of acceptance, survival and love."

Celebrating the good news, Amanda told The Shed, "I have often thought of giving up but what drove me on was the idea that I could not leave unfinished what I had started. The story I was trying to tell had to be told."

22 Britannia Road tells of three Polish emigres, a couple and their son, who make a home for themselves in post-war Britain. Each of the three has a secret and they must accept the choices that war forced on them in Poland before they can learn to live together again.

Amanda used feedback from online peer review sites, including the BookShed, to develop chapters from the novel.

"I think peer review sites can be amazingly helpful for new writers," she said. "I recommend them as support groups and also as places where you get the chance to read others' works and see the process of learning to write most clearly. Equally, I think the best thing a new writer can do is read. Widely and a lot. And write every day."

"I have always listened to every piece of advice I've been given. Advice is something to be taken seriously, if only to reach a point where you discard it. The most interesting for me was when a writer said to me quite simply, that all dialogue is metaphor. I'm still thinking on that one."

In 2011, Amanda will join the ranks of fellow Fig Tree Press writers who include Helen Dunmore, Zoe Heller, India Knight, Tim Lott and Patrick Neate.