Former Sotby resident Elizabeth Shipton releases debut novel 'Dot Slash Magic' with Angry Robot Books
I thought you might like to know about the publication of a new book by an ex-local author - Liz Shipton (full name, Elizabeth Shipton.) Liz is a former pupil of Donington on Bain Primary School and used to live in the tiny village of Sotby, on the edge of the Wolds.
At age 9, her family moved to California, but she has never forgotten those first few formative years!
After moving to California, Liz and her younger brother Duncan, attended Valencia Elementary in Aptos CA, on the beautiful California Central Coast, and then Aptos Middle and High schools, and then Liz also attended Cabrillo College, a community college in Aptos before heading to the University of California at San Diego.
Liz worked as a musician in San Diego after graduating college, and then, frustrated with trying to earn a living as a musician, she attended coding 'Boot Camp' in San Francisco, and worked as a software coder in Silicon Valley, before she and her life partner Trevor decided on a change of tack. They bought a sailboat and headed south at the height of the Covid pandemic. They've now lived on the boat with their dog Aloy for almost 4 years, but even after time spent in Mexico, Central America, Panama, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and now Grenada in the Caribbean, she hopes one day to make it back to Sotby, to show Trevor where she spent those all important formative early years!
Liz started writing by taking on assignments to ghost write blogs about coding, and to write content for online coding educators, but she soon realized that she'd rather write fiction, and in fact she started out by turning their real life boat-life into the background for dystopian stories that she self published online. (The Thalassic Series, Salt, Sand and Soul were her first full length works.
After some success online, and a constant presence via her comedic and satirical videos on an offshoot of TikTok known as BookTok, she was approached by an agent, and Dot Slash Magic is her first 'traditionally' published novel.
It's published by Angry Robot Books, a British publisher who partner with Penguin Random House to distribute their books throughout the world, and is available from all good bookshops as well as the usual suspects online.
Dot Slash Magic launches on an unsuspecting world on Tuesday August 19th 2025! It's available as a non-spicy e-book, and as the original paperback.
I am Lizzie's Mom. And her biggest fan!