What is Up Lit?

If you’re interested in the world of books and trends in the publishing industry, you may well have heard of Up Lit. Or it might be a brand new term and a total mystery to you! Either way, this article will shed light on the power and pull of this wonderful genre of fiction. (And remember, if you want to stay up to date on trends in the publishing industry, you can’t do better than subscribing to our weekly newsletter, written by world-famous authors and publishing professionals.)

The fact is, Up Lit is much more than a new literary buzzword, and it may well be a genre you’re interested in writing—or at the very least, reading. In fact, you could be reading it already without even realizing it!

Have you ever picked up a novel by Beth O’Leary? Anything by Rachel Joyce—The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, perhaps? Have you read something by Matt Haig, or Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine? What about The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, or The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune...? If you have, this “new” publishing genre might not be so new to you after all.

If you think these books are just about lifting the human spirit with an overemphasis on optimism and wonder, don’t be fooled! It’s true that Up Lit novels often focus on life-affirming aspects of the world to leave you feeling inspired and generally glad to be alive, but they still explore themes that might be darker or more complex. It’s an interesting genre which, despite its joyfulness, preserves realism. It allows writers to explore real-life issues and current events, while keeping a light touch and leaving us with hope for the future—be that through gentler human connections, the power of words, or the fact that people can make a difference.

A great Up Lit novel can have sad moments and stir up all kinds of childhood memories or feelings/traumas from the protagonist’s past, but it will also create feelings of hope and remind you that the world is filled with small joys and wonderful people. It might even have you reaching out to friends from your own past, or give you a new understanding of painful experiences!

Our resident Up Lit expert

Of course, the real experts on Up Lit (sometimes shortened further to UpLit) are the people writing it. That’s why we’re so thrilled to be joined by Libby Page, our writing coach here at The Novelry and one of the writers at the forefront of the Up Lit revolution.

In fact, Libby is the author of several Up Lit novels. Her debut, The Lido, saw her named a Guardian New Face of Fiction when it was published by Orion in 2018. The novel became a Sunday Times bestseller within its first week of publication and has been published in more than 23 territories around the world.

Described by the Observer as “a joyful celebration of community and friendship” and by the Sunday Express as “a timeless tale of friendship, love and chilly swims,” The Lido was one of the leading books associated with Up Lit when the term was first coined the year of Libby’s debut publication.

If you’re working on a happy, heartfelt story, a romance, or a piece of women’s fiction, you’ll find Libby’s coaching to be as warm and uplifting as her writing. Sign up to one of our creative writing courses today to enjoy her one-to-one mentoring as well as a world-class writing programme!

Over to Libby to tell us more about this fascinating genre...

What writing Up Lit means

When I wrote my first novel, The Lido, the term Up Lit (an abbreviation of Uplifting Literature) didn’t exist.

The first time I heard it (and I’m pretty sure the moment it was officially coined) was in a Guardian article in 2017, the same year my book was bought by Orion Fiction. The article suggested that after years of bestseller lists being dominated by crime and thrillers, readers had “an appetite for everyday heroism, human connection and love” but with the distinction that the type of love explored wasn’t solely romantic, i.e., where the protagonists are generally fixated on falling in love.

Instead, Up Lit is often focused on friends, family, and community. The article described Up Lit as “the new book trend with kindness at its core.”

Some of the earliest books associated with the term were Joanna Cannon’s The Trouble With Goats and Sheep, Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, and How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. And when my own novel, The Lido, was published in 2018, a story about a cross-generational friendship and a community coming together to save their local outdoor pool, it was quickly described as Up Lit too (and became a bestseller).

Another Guardian article, this time in 2018, described Up Lit as “novels of kindness and compassion,” while in 2019, Refinery29 suggested that fans of Up Lit want "to be soothed rather than titillated, to be uplifted rather than hang from the edge of their seat.”

Up Lit isn’t all fun and games

One of the key markers of Up Lit, I think (and this seems to be the consensus if you have a dig through some of the articles written on the subject), is that while it’s a genre that is optimistic, it is also grounded in reality—and that means sometimes dealing with some very real, dark subjects. In my own novels, I have explored subjects like grief, loneliness, panic attacks, and family rifts. How the characters tackle these issues, though, and ultimately vanquish them, is what provides the uplifting part. Up Lit novels show characters grappling their way through dark times with the help of friends and community.

Iona smiled, and felt a weight that had been resting on her shoulders for several years start to shift slightly. She was beginning to feel, just a little bit, like the woman Fizz thought she was. The woman she’d used to be. Maybe it was all going to be okay after all.
—Clare Pooley, The People on Platform 5

I would also say there is a universality about Up Lit, which adds to its appeal and comes from having human emotion at its heart. When I write my books, I ask myself whether they could be read by someone my age (I’m in my thirties), but also by that person’s mother or grandmother. By dealing with topics we all go through at some point in life—loneliness, bereavement, mental health struggles—but providing a positive, hopeful outcome, we’re telling readers (whoever they may be) that they are not alone.

By dealing with topics we all go through at some point in life—loneliness, bereavement, mental health struggles—but providing a positive, hopeful outcome, we’re telling readers (whoever they may be) that they are not alone.
—Libby Page

Up Lit is about our universal search for connection

Up Lit is about connection. How to find it, why it matters, what it looks like, and how our society benefits from us finding true connections in our everyday lives.

It strikes her that her home isn’t just a house or even the people who once shared it with her. Her home is this town.
—Libby Page, The Vintage Shop of Second Chances

In my second novel, The 24-Hour Café, I explored the connections between strangers whose lives cross in an all-night diner. In The Island Home, I used the setting of a remote island with a very strong sense of community to show how even people living in seemingly isolated places can escape loneliness when they feel closely linked to their neighbors.

That’s one thing I hadn’t quite realised when I became pregnant: when you have a baby here they become the island’s child, not just your own.
—Libby Page, The Island Home

Perhaps Up Lit’s rise as a genre has a lot to do with our sense of disconnect. In this Guardian article, Joanna Cannon said the current political landscape “feels very treacherous and very fragile. When we look around us and see that fragility and that uncertainty we look for something we can hold on to. Community is a brilliant antidote to that fragmentation. It makes us feel more secure to be drawn to a sense of purpose and a sense of place.”

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The genre that lit up the darkness

I describe myself as an optimist, but optimism (like Up Lit) can sometimes be misunderstood. Optimism isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, or turning a blind eye to life’s darkness. It’s about seeing that darkness but choosing to hope and believe things could be brighter.

I think Up Lit is the same. These books use words to paint a picture of how we’d like the world to be, and maybe, how it could be, if we all did our little bit to make it so.

To help you understand what the genre is all about and whether you’re writing this kind of lit, here’s a little cheat sheet.

An Up Lit genre cheat sheet

First, let’s think about what we can expect to see in Up Lit books.

Up Lit always has:

• Themes of kindness and connection at its heart, and the sense that these things make the world a better place
• A hopeful, optimistic tone (even if the book deals with dark subjects too)
• Love in some form—be it friendship, romance, or family bonds
• A strong sense of empathy
• A strong sense of community
• Characters who deal with some sort of emotional issue (isolation, grief, a difficult past) or a character flaw, but are fundamentally changed for the better by the experiences they go through in the story

Up Lit often (but not always) features:

• Older characters (A Man Called Ove, Three Things About Elsie, The Lido, The Authenticity Project, The Switch)
• A dog (Dog Days, Ruth Hogan’s works)
• A romantic storyline, perhaps as a subplot (The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce, The Switch by Beth O’Leary, all my own novels)
• A quirky cast of characters—an unlikely group brought together by the events of the story (The Authenticity Project, The Vintage Shop of Second Chances, The People on Platform 5)
• Unlikely friendships (perhaps between the young and old, or people from different societal backgrounds)
• Protagonists who begin their journey as outsiders (Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine) or who are isolated in some way (like Kate, the protagonist in The Lido)

Genres similar to Up Lit

The desire for uplifting stories during troubled times is what also drives the popularity of other similar genres to Up Lit, such as cozy crime (Richard Osman, The Reverend Richard Coles, Alexander McCall Smith) and romance (which continues to be the biggest-selling fiction genre).

Juliet Mushens, Richard Osman’s literary agent, said in an article in The Times:

Readers want to escape from their lives and the uncontrolled realities of the pandemic into narratives where you can usually presume that things will be wrapped up at the end.
—Juliet Mushens, The Times

There are some similarities between cozy crime and Up Lit—for example, an unlikely band of heroes (elderly would-be detectives in Richard Osman’s books) coming together around a common goal (solving a murder in cozy crime versus some sort of community action in Up Lit).

In the same Times article, cozy crime is described as “an extraordinary event in ordinary circumstances,” and I would say this rings true for Up Lit, too. Ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances, or forced to find their extraordinary within themselves.

Veronica: true, headstrong and gloriously vivid. How she shines! No matter what life throws at her, she will defy the odds. Whatever she does, she will be extraordinary.
—Hazel Prior, Away with the Penguins

According to this Guardian article, romance sales are at an all-time high because readers are looking for happily-ever-afters in tough times.

I’d say there is some crossover between romance and Up Lit. Beth O’Leary writes books that blend characteristics of both genres, and in my own novels, while the romantic storyline might not be the most prominent thread, romance always plays an important part. Authors like Jenny Colgan and Veronica Henry often write stories where both romantic love and community come together (like Jenny Colgan’s The Christmas Bookshop, where a community bands together to save a failing bookstore, but with a prominent romantic plot running alongside it).

One thing that feels true of cozy crime, romance, and Up Lit is the need for a happy ending. The crime is solved in cozy crime; the lovers get together in romance; the central characters in Up Lit find themselves changed for the good, connected where they were isolated, and hopeful where they had lost their way.

In Up Lit, an ending can be bittersweet (spoiler: in The Lido, I did this by balancing the happiness of a community pool being saved with the death of an elderly main character), because life itself is bittersweet.

I first met Rosemary for work, but it never really felt like work. I was there to write her story but she asked me mine. She helped me find my way. Without Rosemary I may not have discovered this lido. Without Rosemary I may never have met all of you, and found my place in this city. Without her, I would still be lost.
—Libby Page, The Lido

Up Lit shows the ups and downs of life through an ultimately hopeful lens.

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