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Author · Storyteller
Sophie Bell
@sophiebell
Independent writer working mainly in literary fiction, with an interest in craft, books and the practical side of publishing.
Behind the stories
About the writer
Sophie Bell is a literary fiction writer interested in how stories work, how readers respond to them and how technology is changing the way writers create and publish.
A story does not need to explain everything to know what it means.
Books and story worlds
Stories by Sophie Bell
On the writing desk
Currently creating
Later first draft
The Last Proof Copy
In 1987 Chester, a freelance proofreader is hired to check the final pages of a small independent publisher’s debut novel and discovers that the book has been quietly altered in ways that mirror a family history she has spent years avoiding. As she follows the paper trail through printers, type shops and secondhand bookshops, she begins to suspect the real story is not in the manuscript at all, but in the decisions made around it. The novel moves between the practical machinery of publishing and the private costs of trying to keep a life legible.
80%
Draft progress
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