If several authors are writing books on similar themes does this make a 'trend'? Traditional Publishers don't think so. They've never heard of Protest Novelists or Challenging Writers, but this could be the 'next big thing' in the world of books. To find it, you might have to look on the internet, but that's no bad thing. There's plenty of good stuff out there, just waiting to be read. Traditional Publishers take ages to notice a trend. In the 1980s it was so-called 'Magical Realism' that had to be around for a while before the people who put the books out noticed what it was. In the 1990s it was the worrying wave of 'Tragic Childhoods' books - a series of stories that the public have been snapping up in Britain. After the sales went into the millions, it finally dawned on publishers that they had a new trend on their hands and they started looking for authors to meet the demand. In English bookshops there is now usually a whole section ...