Tales of the Capital of Culture

The first prose offering from Ings Press is a tour around all 24 of the postal districts of the City of Bradford, 2025’s UK Capital of Culture.

In Ryall Hill’s ‘Bradford District Lines’ we meet a recurring cast of characters firmly rooted in place around different locales of the Bradford district, as we move from the recent past, through the COVID years up to the present day and beyond, as Hill final stories deal speculatively with the future in Bradford’s hinterland in the Yorkshire Dales.

First published as a whole on Hill’s Substack, I had previously encountered some of the stories at open mic events and readings, and had greatly enjoyed the narrative drive, the warmth with which the characters were portrayed and the vividness with which they were drawn – as well as the obvious, though clear-sighted affection that East Anglian Hill holds for his adopted city.

When the option arose of bringing out such an impressive collection of short stories in book form, I didn’t hesitate in agreeing to their being the lead fiction offering from Ings. I love them and am sure that readers – from Bradford and elsewhere – will feel the same.