People

Jon McGregor, from Nottingham's Forest Fields, is one of 25 authors who've been named as the future of British writing by the book industry.

He appears alongside best-selling novelists Maggie O'Farrell and Marina Lewycka, historian Dominic Sandbrook and cookery writer Jo Pratt.

Book chain Waterstone's asked publishers, editors and agents to nominate the emergent writers likely to produce the most impressive body of work over the next quarter of a century. More than 100 names were submitted and Waterstone's produced the list to 25.

Immediate success

It was his debut novel If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things that catapulted him to literary stardom. He still can't put his finger on why it caught the imagination.

"I've no idea what the formula is and it was interesting the way people reacted. A lot of people responded to the idea of neighbours not knowing each other and trying to get to know each other.

"The book was about people living separate lives right next to each other and people identified with that. I guess the critics reacted to the language of the book. I wrote it in a very poetic style."

The style worked. McGregor's book won the 2003 Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Best Newcomer category in the 2004 British Book awards.

His second novel, So Many Ways to Begin, was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2006.

25 Authors of the Future

Nottingham has more than one author on the list. Nottingham-born Susannah Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and Hallam's Robert Macfarlane, winner of the Guardian's First Book Award in 2003 for Mountains of the Mind, also feature.

Naomi Alderman, Susanna Clarke, Siobhan Dowd, Jasper Fforde, Julia Golding, Emily Gravett, Jane Harris, Steven Hall, Peter Hobbs, Marina Lewycka, Gautam Malkani, Robert Mcfarlane, Jon McGregor, Charlotte Mendelson, Richard Morgan, Maggie O'Farrell, Helen Oyeyemi, Dominic Sandbrook, CJ Sansom, Chris Simms, Nick Stone, Louise Welsh, Ben Wilson, Robyn Young.