Current Projects:  Non-Fiction

Man versus Microbes             Memoir/Public Health/Medicine

From Cholera to Covid

Prof. Nizam Damani

Part memoir, part history lesson in microbiology, and part wake up call to humanity in the context of the current pandemic, by one of the world’s leading experts on infection prevention and control.

Man vs Microbes traces the early life of Dr Damani, born into the poverty-stricken part of Pakistan, and follows his journey to becoming a medical student and qualifying as a clinical microbiologist. The author takes the reader to numerous countries spanning three continents where he worked throughout his career, highlighting the many infectious diseases encountered along the way. Some of the infections he contracted himself, others were suffered by family members, but mainly they were in the bodies of the countless patients he cared for over the past 40 years. From Cholera to Covid and everything in between, he details the origins of each disease and man’s struggle against them.

Dr Damani’s first viral encounter was when he contracted Cholera as a baby and was not expected to survive. How ironic that the woman who nursed him back to health was taken by Covid during the Pandemic. His mother was one of the 651 people to die of Covid-19 in England on 14 April 2020. Undoubtedly the pain of this loss will resonate with many readers, who were unable to say goodbye to their loved one due to the public health restrictions. Having devoted his life to battling these invisible enemies, Covid–19 cruelly reminded Dr Damani how microbes still have the ability to outsmart and outpace us.

As an expert advisor on infection prevention and control (IPC) for the World Health Organisation, Dr Damani calls out the reckless behaviour of humans which has facilitated the spread of microbes to almost every part of the planet. Intensive farming, misuse of antibiotics, overcrowded cities, poor sanitation, deforestation, climate change, conflict, war, famine, drought and of course our love of foreign travel – all have contributed to a chaotic environment where a virus can survive, thrive and spread.

Dr Damani does offer hope, but only if we can garner a global response to our situation. In the final section of the book he sets out a prescription for the planet, explaining that with science and solidarity we can co-exist with our invisible enemies.

Dr Nizam Damani is one of the world’s leading experts on infection prevention and control (IPC). His outstanding dedication to the field has been recognised with numerous international lifetime achievement awards.  He is a much sought-after speaker on IPC issues and in recent years he has provided the keynote address at numerous conferences and masterclasses globally. Since the emergence of Covid-19, his expertise has been called upon to support governments, countries, facilities and public health experts on how to manage infected patients and to reduce spread of the disease in health care settings. 

A self-confessed bibliophile, Dr Damani has  written numerous books - the most recent being The Manual of Infection Prevention and Control (4th edition) published by the Oxford University Press  This text has been translated into Polish, Croatian, and Japanese (Chinese translation is underway) with estimated sales of around 4000 copies in the English language alone.

Dr Damani is also a gifted educator. Amongst numerous teaching roles, he was an Honorary Senior Lecturer at Queens University Belfast. He currently on the WHO Adhoc Covid-19 Advisory and Guideline Development (+ Ebola Guideline Development Group) He is visiting Professor at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Pakistan and the Southern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland. 

World Rights:  paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk

In Ordinary Time: Fragments of a Family History            Memoir

Carmel Maria Mc Mahon

In Ordinary Time is a hybrid memoir comprised of essays, poems and photographs (45,000 words). It looks at the ways “ordinary traumas”, personal and historic, reverberate through time and resonate through a life. Trauma interrupts the unity and linearity of temporality, so time is a central concern.

Drawing attention to different constructions of time, Carmel Mc Mahon sketches the evolution of a consciousness from her upbringing in the Catholic and conservative Ireland of the seventies and eighties to the New York City of today.

It is a beautifully written, unique and compelling memoir.

Carmel Mc Mahon graduated with an MA in the Liberal Arts (Biography and Memoir Track) from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in September 2020. While there, she was made the 2018/2019 writer-in-residence of the Irish Studies Department at Queens College (CUNY). She is passionate about Irish literature and particularly interested in the ways writers make use of the material of their lives.

Carmel emigrated from Ireland to the US in 1993 at age 20. She carried $500, two suitcases and a ton of invisible baggage. It has been a long journey, and she is ready to return home. With her partner and their dogs, she looks forward to taking up residence again in Ireland in October, 2021. Her writing has been published in the Irish Times, A Woman’s Thing, The Irish Echo, the Humanities Review, Longreads, and the Australian-Irish Heritage Journal. 

World English Language Rights: Duckworth Books

Translation rights: paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk

Conscious Beauty:                   Beauty/Environment

A guide to being beautiful and saving the planet

Niki Richards

Conscious Beauty is not just a guide to help you look and feel fabulous. It’s also about being informed, aware and intentional about our beauty consumption. It’s a call-to-action for all of us, to join the beauty revolution and help change one of the world’s most opaque industries into a force for good. Love beauty, love yourself and love the planet. 

Niki Richards started her career working in the advertising and marketing departments of big brands within the beauty and fashion industries. After 15 years in beauty and fashion marketing, Niki decided she wanted to change direction, and completed an MSc in Psychology, with a special interest in self-identity and the psychology of appearance. In March 2019, Niki launched her own business – Organa Beauty & Wellbeing (www.organabeautywellbeing.com), an online marketplace curating products and content aiming to connect the mind, the body and the planet. 

World Rights: susan@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk

Cassandra’s Star

Seven Women of Jane Austen’s Family in Ireland, 1834-1921      Literary Biography

Sophia Hillan

Illustrated by images and photographs previously unseen, Cassandra's Star gives a series of illuminating pen portraits of seven women descended, through the maternal line, from Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight. It sets out to answer two central questions: what was it like to be a daughter of the Anglo-Irish Big House in the years before the Partition of Ireland in 1921; and what of their aunt’s famous principles of humour, patience and wry detachment did they bring to this very different society? 

Sophia Hillan began her writing career with prizes for her first short stories from the BBC (1979) and Listowel Writers’ Week (1980), publication in “New Irish Writing” (Irish Press) and a short-listed nomination for a Hennessy Award (1981).  She went on, while pursuing a parallel academic life as Assistant Director of Queen’s University Belfast’s Institute of Irish Studies (1993-2003), to be a finalist for the Royal Society of Literature’s first V.S. Pritchett Memorial Award (1999), to be published in David Marcus’s first Faber Book of Best New Irish Short Stories (2005) and to have her work commissioned and broadcast by BBC’s Radio 4.  She published her 1987 PhD on Seamus Heaney’s early mentor, Michael McLaverty, as In Quiet Places (Poolbeg Press, 1989) and The Silken Twine (Poolbeg Press,1992) and, after uncovering the previously unknown story of Jane Austen’s Donegal connection, went on to publish her research as May, Lou and Cass; Jane Austen’s Nieces in Ireland (Blackstaff Press, 2011).  She has since published two novels, The Friday Tree (Ward River Press, 2014) and The Way We Danced (Ward River Press, 2016) and a collection of short stories, The Cocktail Hour (Arlen House, 2018).  She is a member of both the Irish Writers’ Centre and of the UK Society of Authors and is Vice-Chair of Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann. 

World rights: paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk 

As the Smoke Clears        Memoir         

A True Story of Love, Loss, Resilience and Survival

Zoe Holohan

The harrowing true story of the Irish woman, who, on honeymoon with her new husband, was caught up in the Greek wildfires of 2018, in which her husband perished but she survived.

Zoe Holohan has worked in media for over two decades, in advertising, marketing and on creative campaign design. She has had numerous travel articles published in The Irish Independent and the Sunday World magazine . 

UK and Ireland Rights: Gill Books March 2021

All Other Rights: paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk

The Upside of Down                   Memoir/Mental Health

Tara West

The novelist’s memoir of depression and recovery.

Published by Dalzell Press in October 2020.

Tara West is the author two novels. Poets are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan (Liberties Press, 2012) and Fodder (Blackstaff Press, 2002).

Translation rights: paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk

Treasury of Mindfulness                       Mind, Body, Spirit

Tips and Techniques for Every Day

Paddy Brosnan

A collection of simple yet precious resources which will enhance readers’ lives and add to the quality of their everyday experiences Each page or entry in the Treasury will feature one of four different kinds of mindfulness tools: A Mindful Meditation, Everyday Mindfulness, Mindful Ideas, 1-Minute Mindfulness.

Published by Dalzell Press in March 2020.

Paddy Brosnan is a mindfulness teacher and inspirational speaker. A committed Buddhist, he has practiced mindfulness for 14 years and has been teaching for over four years. Paddy’s first book, This Works: How to Use Mindfulness to Calm the Hell Down and Just Be Happy was published by Hay House in October 2018.  

Audio Rights to Bolinda.

Translation rights: paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk

Afraid of the Dark            Memoir/Mental Health/Fatherhood

Jonny McCambridge

The Irish journalist’s memoir about his struggles with mental health issues as well as the trials and tribulations of being a full-time ‘stay-at-home’ dad to his infant son.

Published by Dalzell Press on January 26th, 2021.

Jonny McCambridge is an Irish journalist and blogger.

Translation rights: paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk

American Life in Opera                                                          Music             

and the Richard Tucker Music Foundation

Encounters with opera stars and winners of the Richard Tucker Award

and Career Grants, and the Sara Tucker Study Grants

Maria-Cristina Necula

Following the mission and model of her Life in Opera (Amadeus Press, 2009), Necula proposes to continue the candid conversations with internationally-renowned opera stars about living and working in the opera world, but with a focus this time on American singers.

Maria-Cristina Necula’s published work includes Life in Opera: Truth, Tempo and Soul (Amadeus Press, 2009); two translations: Molière’s The School for Wives (performed at Canterbury Christ Church University, U.K.)  and Europe à la carte; two poetry chapbooks: The Bliss Delusion Tango and Shadows and Miracles; and over forty articles and interviews in Classical Singer Magazine, Das Opernglas, Studies in European Cinema, and Opera News. A classically trained singer, she has performed in the New York City area at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Florence Gould Hall, and the Westchester Broadway Theatre, among other venues. She lives in White Plains, NY.

World Rights: paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk

The Musical Offering                               Music                      

Why the Musical Calling Matters

John Kennedy

The Musical Offering is a meditation on the power of music and the pursuit of a musical life, providing a platform for musical activism in today’s world. Amidst profound shifts in cultural values and a rapidly changing musical landscape, the book affirms the values inherent in musical practice and why music is a performative form of social action.

John Kennedy is a widely-known and renowned conductor, composer, and musician. With a legacy of artistic leadership, fuelled by creativity and experimentalism, Kennedy has led acclaimed performances worldwide in opera, orchestral, dance, and new music, from New York’s Lincoln Center Festival, to the leading festivals of Europe and Asia. As the Resident Conductor and Director of Orchestral Activities for Spoleto Festival USA since 2011, Kennedy is acclaimed for his imaginative programming linking music of all eras, as well as illuminating performances of contemporary music. A prolific composer whose work has been hailed for its beauty, strangeness, and communicative capacity, Kennedy is a devoted agent of music as a living cultural force.  He lives in Berkeley, California.

World Rights: paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk

Morphine: The Blessing, The Curse              Narrative Non-Fiction/Memoir                        

Dr Liam Farrell

Morphine is a double-edged sword. Due to its unique ability to control pain, every one of us will one day need it, but it has extracted a terrible price on both individuals and society. In this book, Dr Liam Farrell, family doctor, writer and broadcaster – and former morphine addict – explores the history and the science of the drug that almost destroyed him.

Dr Liam Farrell, 58, is a former family doctor, an award-winning writer and a seasoned broadcaster. He has been a columnist for the British Medical Journal for 20 years and currently writes for GP, the leading publication for general practitioners in the UK. He has also been a columnist for The Lancet, the Journal of General Practice, the Belfast Telegraph and the Irish News. He wrote the entry on sex for The Oxford Companion to the Body.  On Twitter he curates #Irishmed, a weekly ‘tweetchat’ for his 13k followers on all things relating to Irish medicine, north and south. His first book, Are You the F**cking Doctor, was published in Autumn 2018 by Dalzell Press. He lives in Rostrevor, N. Ireland                             

World Rights: paul@thefeldsteinagency.co.uk