Peter Cowlam

Biography

Peter Cowlam studied Performance Writing at Dartington College of Arts. He has had plays performed at the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth, and by the Dartington Playgoers, and has had readings at the State University of New York and for the Theatre West 100 Plays project in Bristol, England.

As a novelist, he has won the Quagga Prize for Literary Fiction twice, most recently in 2018 for his novel New King Palmers, which is at the intersection of old, crumbling empires and new, digital agglomerates. The Quagga Prize is awarded for independently published works of fiction. In total he has had three novels published independently.

He has had four collections of haikuesque poems published (one in collaboration with Kathryn Kopple), also independently, and as poet and writer of fiction his work has appeared on the Fairlight Books website, in En Bloc, The Battersea Review, The San Francisco Review of Books, The Blue Nib, The Galway Review, Easy Street, Literary Matters, Eunoia Review, The Brown Boat, Valparaiso Fiction Review, The Four Quarters Magazine, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Liberal, the Criterion, and others.

Peter Cowlam is the Literary Editor at Ars Notoria (arsnotoria.com). He can be contacted at petercowlam@gmail.com

Books

The Concord Diary
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 9,160. Language: English. Published: July 24, 2023 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Fiction » Literature » Literary
Student Marcus Fyer is at odds with both family and campus life, and is about to quit university and just take off. His father arranges a course of therapy to see him through his crisis, though Marcus finds himself at odds with that arrangement too.
New King Palmers
Price: Free! Words: 84,370. Language: English. Published: July 20, 2023 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Fiction » Urban, Fiction » Literature » Literary
Winner of the 2018 Quagga Prize for Literary Fiction. New King Palmers is narrated by its principal character Humfrey Joel, a close friend of Earl Eliot d’Oc, whose ancestry is bound up with the Habsburgs and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. D’Oc is a member of the British Privy Council and is a close friend of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and bears secrets in the months leading up to her death.
A Forgotten Poet
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 24,320. Language: English. Published: July 3, 2023 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Fiction » Literature » Literary
A Forgotten Poet follows the fortunes of diffident and reluctant man of letters, Harold Humber, from his early life in the English Midlands, through his post-war career as economist, jazz aficionado, expert in industrial architecture, and, in the final reckoning, author of four slim volumes of popular verse.
L'altra donna
Price: $5.99 USD. Words: 25,810. Language: Italian. Published: January 16, 2023 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Fiction » Literature » Literary, Fiction » Romance » Contemporary
Il primo amore, che sia davvero green (adolescenziale) o che si viva più avanti negli anni, è da sempre il tema centrale di storie, miti, romanzi, tragedie, film, canzoni. E l’adagio è più che noto: il primo amore non si scorda mai. E può diventare un’ossessione, se no te ne liberi, come acacde al protagonista del romanzo.
Early Novels and Short Fiction
Price: $9.70 USD. Words: 350,420. Language: English. Published: August 15, 2022 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Fiction » Literary collections » European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
*Early Novels and Short Fiction* is the first of three volumes covering Peter Cowlam’s adventures into fiction, dating from the mid-1970s and into the twenty-first century. *Early Novels and Short Fiction* covers the period from 1974 to 1998 (approximately).
Marisa
Price: $4.99 USD. Words: 26,270. Language: English. Published: January 17, 2014 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Fiction » Romance » Contemporary
A tale of love, lust, marriage and money, and first love as it comes to an end. But does it really end?
The Patient's Diary
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 9,150. Language: English. Published: January 5, 2014 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Fiction » Literary collections » Diaries & Journals
Marcus Fyer, on the brink of dropping out of university, is sent for therapy, and sets his therapist a puzzle.
Manifesto
Price: $0.99 USD. Words: 2,540. Language: English. Published: June 29, 2011 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Poetry » U.K. Poetry
Manifesto is a sequence of haikuesque poems aimed as a counter-blast at political and financial institutions.
Meakin
Price: $0.99 USD. Words: 4,830. Language: English. Published: September 6, 2010 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Fiction » Literature » Literary
A jaded academic and musicologist embarks on a new career as an insurance salesman, though he can't shake off his past as easily as that...
Opus Thirty Three Bagatelles
Price: $0.99 USD. Words: 3,970. Language: English. Published: June 20, 2010 by CentreHouse Press. Categories: Poetry » U.K. Poetry, Poetry » Contemporary Poetry
'Opus Thirty Three Bagatelles' is a collection of finely crafted miniatures, marked out for their candour and observational precision. ‘Eloquent and alembic.’