Press and festival resources
Media kit and publicity assets
Everything literary festival directors, podcast producers, cultural journalists, and booksellers need to feature Elsa Varnell and her novels.
Official downloads
High-resolution press materials
All photos and cover assets are approved for print, broadcast, and digital promotional use.
Cover art
The Salt Orchard book jacket
High-resolution front cover and 3D packshot suitable for print catalogues and web listings (300 DPI CMYK TIFF & WebP).
Author portrait
Official author headshots
Color and monochrome portraits by photographer Claire Redman on the Suffolk coast. Photo credit required.
Press release
Complete press kit (PDF)
One-page press release, book synopsis, key reviews, and sample interview questions in a single printable document.
Author biographies
Biographies for promotional use
Select the bio length that best fits your festival program, print catalogue, or interview introduction.
"Elsa Varnell is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Salt Orchard, shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. Raised on the Suffolk coast, she worked as a conservation archivist before turning to fiction. She lives near Aldeburgh, writing the second novel in her Orchard series."
"Elsa Varnell is an English novelist whose writing explores landscape, inheritance, and the fragile border between human communities and the sea. Her debut novel, The Salt Orchard, was published by Faber & Faber to widespread critical acclaim, becoming an immediate Sunday Times bestseller and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Born in Lowestoft and trained in botanical preservation, Elsa spent ten years cataloguing coastal land archives before writing her first book. She lives on the Suffolk marshes with her partner and two lurchers, and is currently finishing The Winter Graft, book two of the Orchard series."
Speaking and panels
Suggested interview topics
Elsa is an experienced public speaker and panelist. Common discussion topics include:
- Climate grief through domestic fiction Telling ecological stories through intimate family choices rather than apocalyptic lectures.
- The heritage of English orchard craft How rare cider varieties like the D'Arcy Spice apple survive maritime saltwater inundation.
- Writing a debut novel in your forties How a decade in coastal conservation archives provided the emotional grounding for late debut fiction.
- The lost villages of the Suffolk coast Local folklore, Dunwich history, and what happens when the sea claims cemetery and farmland.
Representation
Agency and publicity contacts
For rights inquiries, festival invitations, or interview requests, please contact Elsa's team directly:
Literary agent
Eleanor Aitken
Aitken Alexander Associates
18–21 Cavaye Place, London SW10 9PT
e.aitken@aitkenalexander.co.uk
UK publicity
Faber & Faber Publicity
The Bindery, 51 Hatton Garden
London EC1N 8HN
publicity@faber.co.uk
US publicity
Riverhead Books (PRH)
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
riverheadpublicity@penguinrandomhouse.com