“Sammy Leigh wrote through Covid lockdown to eventually produce her debut novel”

Samantha Leigh is celebrating her debut novel, Joy, being published with Northodox, which she embarked upon writing after studying creative writing at university before the Covid lockdown brought a premature ‘slowing down’ of her creativity, which was reignited as the country began functioning again.

Speaking to The Book Insider, Samantha reveals her writing process and how it has been to be published by Northodox, who celebrates northern writers, as Joy hits the shelves of bookshops with her contemporary tale of romance in the LGBTQ+ community.

Samantha said: “Overall, Joy took around four years from start to finish. I began my MA in Writing in 2019, which I started with one page and a vague idea of what I wanted to write. After I graduated, I found time around my full time job to work on the book, and eventually got it finished.”

She said that the lockdown held up progress but she soon picked up her pen again and finished her debut novel. Samantha continued: “This all sat smack bang in the middle of Covid years too, where I think I went a whole six months without writing a single word, so that didn’t help the time line.

“To anyone out there trying to write a novel, I can’t stress how important it is to set aside time every day just to get a little something from your brain to paper.”

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Speaking about the process of finding a publisher, Samantha admits that she struck it lucky reasonably quickly in the process. She told The Book Insider: “I contacted a few different agents before getting in touch with any publishers, as that seemed like the smartest and safest route to go down.

“I got around five or six rejection emails from agents before I just decided to contact a publisher by myself. I got super lucky, as Northodox requested my full manuscript not long after my submission.”

There was joy for Samantha that Joy was taking a huge step to being published. She said: “I was absolutely over the moon when I got the email, and for the longest time (even a little bit now), I’m still expecting them to turn around and say ‘just kidding’, but, so far, so good…”

Samantha has now began her next novel, with the experience of Joy hoping to take her to new levels. She said: “I have started work on a second novel. I learned a lot from writing Joy, and I feel being able to look back on the whole experience is really going to inform how I approach the new one.

“I’m doing my best to set aside writing time which I’m being stricter with, and have made sure to plan out my big twists and turns before starting to write. Joy was very much a ‘start writing and see where the characters take you’ situation, but that came with a lot of uncertainty, so I’m trying to do the opposite this time around.”

You can download Joy by Samantha Leigh HERE.