Do we really need more male novelists?
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A recent headline in The Guardian has had me thinking: Do we really need more male novelists? It’s taken me a while to put what I think into words. Mostly because I am another male novelist.
Conduit Books, a new UK publisher focused exclusively on male writers—specifically those its founder, Jude Cook—believes male writers are being “overlooked.” Cook argues that publishing is overcorrecting for decades of male dominance, to the point where younger voices are pushed out.
A leg-up in fiction
On the face of it, there’s something faintly absurd about the idea of men needing a leg-up in fiction. For generations, we had quite a comfortable set up. Male writers weren’t just published—they were studied, celebrated, and shelved in school libraries with reverence. If you were a woman, working-class, queer, or anyone whose experience didn’t mirror the mainstream, you had to yell to be heard at all.
That said, at the time of writing only about one-third of current fiction bestsellers in the UK are written by men. Cook sees this as a crisis of visibility. Critics suggest it’s more like a long-overdue rebalancing—noting how in nonfiction (and overall publishing profits), male authors are still doing just fine.
Beneath the noise, the row reveals something more interesting: we’re still struggling to define what true diversity in literature looks like.
Support for queer voices
Publishing’s diversity conversation often stops at gender. In this case, Co0ok has chosen to fight a binary battle, pitching men against women. But if the industry really wants to tell the full story of who we are, it needs to think beyond this. Where’s the support for queer voices? For writers outside London? For those who didn’t attend the right schools, or whose stories unfold in council estates, corner shops, or post-industrial cities that rarely feature in mainstream fiction?
It’s not that we need more male writers, or more women. We need more variety. More of the messy, beautiful sprawl of lived experience.
That’s one of the reasons I wrote Rainbows and Lollipops, my new novel set in Birmingham. It’s a story about love, grief, friendship, and finding joy when the world isn’t built for you. One central character is gay. One is Black and trans. Nobody in the story owns property anywhere near Hampstead. But every one of them is trying to live with dignity, humour, and heart.
Issue fiction
It’s not “issue fiction.” It’s not an identity manifesto. It’s just a story—one I hope feels honest and deeply human. The kind of story I wish I’d read growing up.
If Conduit Books wants to help working-class lads with a voice and a vision, great. But let’s not forget the other writers still pushing at closed doors. The ones who don’t see themselves in publishing’s mirror—not because of their gender, but because their lives aren’t deemed “universal” enough.
Universal doesn’t mean generic. It means true. And the more truths we let in, the better stories we’ll tell.
