FOLK (2025)
FOLK (2025)
Velocity Press, UK / worldwide
"A timeless portrait of the bittersweet growing pains of youth. I absolutely loved it."
– Justin Robertson
Buy it now via Velocity Press︎︎︎ and at all good bookshops from 8 August 2025
Launch Events
London
Sat 6 Sept 2025
Stef will be in conversation with author Emma Warren (Faber) and photographer Yushy (Velocity Press) as part of the exhibition Section 63: Underground & Unmasted - Documenting Underground London Raves
The event sets FOLK as part of current debates around resistance, youth and community, featuring music, readings and discussion.
The Farsight Gallery, 4-6 Flitcroft Street, London, WC2H 8DJ
Saturday 6 September, 2pm - 5pm
Berlin
Thurs 11 Sept 2025
Join Stef at the new Sound Metaphors store where he will be chatting with Paul Hanford (Coming To Berlin, Lost & Sound)
The launch will be among the first events at the new Neukölln premises of the much-loved Berlin record shop.
Sound Metaphors, Weichselstraße 22, 12045, Berlin
Thursday 11 September, 6pm - 9pm
A story of friendship, fidelity and finding your path
For Mark, Folk was always more than a youth club. It was home. A space to grow up, mess up, and stand by his tribe. Then the mysterious ‘Jason’ turns up and Mark’s world goes into freefall. A summer of heartbreak and hedonism culminates in a wild camping trip, where it’s not just ideals that get abandoned.
What emerges in the aftermath of that summer is an unflinching portrait of teenhood, masculinity and memory as underground culture collided with establishment control, and a generation fought to define itself.
Set against a backdrop of DIY sound systems and tectonic shifts in society, FOLK captures the moment when analogue met digital, rave met resistance, and youth culture found both freedom and fallout.
The release of the novel comes at a time when youth clubs are closing, civil unrest is growing and society feels more polarised than ever. FOLK combines the cultural detail of Andrew O'Hagan's Mayflies with the urgency of Ali Smith. This is historical fiction that speaks to today's debates around identity and what it means to belong.
A version of FOLK was longlisted for the McKitterick Prize in 2023, awarded by the British Society of Authors to a first novel by a writer aged 40 or over.
What emerges in the aftermath of that summer is an unflinching portrait of teenhood, masculinity and memory as underground culture collided with establishment control, and a generation fought to define itself.
Set against a backdrop of DIY sound systems and tectonic shifts in society, FOLK captures the moment when analogue met digital, rave met resistance, and youth culture found both freedom and fallout.
The release of the novel comes at a time when youth clubs are closing, civil unrest is growing and society feels more polarised than ever. FOLK combines the cultural detail of Andrew O'Hagan's Mayflies with the urgency of Ali Smith. This is historical fiction that speaks to today's debates around identity and what it means to belong.
A version of FOLK was longlisted for the McKitterick Prize in 2023, awarded by the British Society of Authors to a first novel by a writer aged 40 or over.
Acclaim for FOLK
"Persuasive and powerful... offering new insights into the freedoms offered by illegal raves and radical youth clubs, told through the lens of an overthinking teenage boy and his friends."
– Emma Warren, author of Up The Youth Club (Faber)
“Evocative, funny and bittersweet…a rave folk tale brimming with Shane Meadows levels of small-town Englishness. Full of dodgy situations, crumbling ideals, first love and finding magic in the mundane, all set to the rising pulse of free rave culture drawing ever closer.”
– Paul Hanford, author of Coming To Berlin (Velocity Press)
"A captivating coming of age tale, that though set in the heady excitement of 90s rave culture, is a timeless portrait of the bitter sweet growing pains of youth. I absolutely loved it."
– Justin Robertson, author of The Trial of Jonah (Velocity Press)