Preorder: Arrives December 2026
 
Stories examining class, race, gender, and sexuality through the lens of physical spaces and who is allowed to occupy them.
 
Opening with the Commonwealth Prize-winning "Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things," the collection weaves through teenage sexual awakening, family secrets, and post-pandemic isolation. Characters grapple with class divisions, discrimination, and desires they barely understand themselves.
 
Unflinching and deeply human, these stories capture pivotal moments when lives quietly but irrevocably change course.
 
 
About the Author
 
Thirty of Rue Baldry’s short stories have appeared in journals such as Granta, Fairlight Shorts, Ambit, MIR Online, Fictive Dream, The First Line, Litro, Pareidolia, Mslexia, and The Honest Ulsterman. In 2023 her story, 'Lech Prince, and the Nice Things', won the Canada and Europe region of the Commonwealth Prize. Other stories have been longlisted for the BBC NSSA and placed in the Reader Berlin and Odd Voice Out competitions.
 
She lives in York, has a Creative Writing MA from Leeds University, was a Bridge Awards/ Moniack Mhor Emerging Writer, a Jerwood/Arvon mentee, and a Women’s Prize Discoveries longlistee. Her debut novel, Dwell, won the 2024 First Novel Prize and is forthcoming from Northodox Press in 2026. Other novels have come second in the Yeovil Prize, and placed in the Caledonian, Bridport, First Page, Retreat West, and Flash 500 competitions.