Canongate Communications Director Jenny Fry met English teacher Mick Kitson at a wake. Three months later she unexpectedly received a draft of his first novel, Sal.
Since then we’ve fallen in love with this beautifully crafted debut, and pre-empted world rights for it. Told by Sal, a thirteen year-old who has run away with her younger sister Peppa in tow, it’s a compulsive, uplifting story of survival, set against the silent, dizzying beauty of Scotland’s wilderness.
Mick Kitson was born in South Wales and studied English at university before launching the prolific 80’s pop band The Senators with his brother Jim. He worked as a journalist for several years, then went on to become an English teacher. He lives in Fife, Scotland with his wife Jill and bad-tempered dog Lucy. He has three grown-up children, and spends more time than is good for him fly fishing for sea trout, reading, playing the banjo and growing strawberries. He also builds boats.
Mick says: “I am thrilled and very excited that Canongate are publishing the book. I wanted to write a modern adventure story along the lines of Huck Finn or Kidnapped. I also wanted to put lots of things in it that I like doing - like fishing, bird watching and swearing.”
Here’s Sal featured in the Guardian.