John Jarrold

Kij Johnson has joined the John Jarrold Literary Agency for UK and Translation rights.

The River Bank is a  comic adult sequel to The Wind in the Willows, which assumes that two female Animals come to live on the same river bank as Mole, Rat, Toad and Badger: a lady novelist, Beryl (who is a Mole), and her companion, the Rabbit. This of course disrupts the status quo, and the story ends up being a mix of high comedy and lyrical nature-pieces, very much in the late-Edwardian manner. She has also written a sequel, The American Tour , which takes place after the publication of Beryl’s highly successful novels about a Hare centurion who becomes Emperor of Rome; her American publisher sends her on a train tour across America, and the River Bankers eventually all end up in Nevada at a failed silver mine.

The author’s shorter fiction has won three Nebulas, three World Fantasy Awards, and a Hugo. She also writes for tabletop roleplaying games. Her  short stories and collections have been reprinted many times all over Europe and Asia. Her World Fantasy Award-winning novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe in 2016 was a successful reinvention of Lovecraft – and The River Bank is a satirical engagement with gender (and class). It is definitely not a children’s book!