Losing the Plot

‘If you’re going to be a novelist, you write something that is recognisably a novel and that means accepting at least some and probably most of the rules of novels, which include some form of plot and setting because there is nothing without time and space, and some form of narrative because that’s how it is, that’s why readers and writers turn up.’

Essay 16th October 2025

Sarah Moss

Sarah Moss is a writer and academic. Her ninth novel, Ripeness, was published in 2025. Sarah’s second novel, Night Waking (2011), won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. Her non-fiction book Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland followed one year later and was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize. Her novels Bodies of Light (2014), Signs for Lost Children (2015) and The Tidal Zone (2016) were all shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. Ghost Wall (2018) was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and the Polari Prize, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Sarah was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2019. She is a regular contributor to the Irish Times.