This is the closest I’ll ever get to featuring on a certain famous BBC Radio 4 programme (and no, I don’t mean The Archers, I’m already on that as Lillian Bellamy). But I bet this was much more fun to do. Me talking with Gilly Smith on Radio Reverb about my writing music and why and how it gets me going.
I am helping my parents move out of their home of 40 years. You’d think that would be hard work, but it appears that if you choose the full pack and move option as they have, it actually mostly involves sunning myself in a Cambridgeshire garden whilst Pickfords men around me toil. So I am amusing myself by looking forward to possibly the most glamorous thing I have done as a writer, ever.
The marvellous The Bookish Supper Salon and Dadaprojects are taking me and a wonderful group of bookish types to Bassano del Grappa and Verona on 29 April for a long weekend of cooking, eating, drinking, sightseeing, reading, and talking about books.… read more
with Farnham Youth Theatre, about 1988. (I’m centre back). The production was Stephen Lowe’s Touched. They’re in 1940s costume. I’m in 1980s.
If you have read my bio, you’ll have noticed that I have had what might kindly be called a portfolio career. This is a feature of the lives of many writers – not many of us manage to start earning money with our very first words. It also happens to many people who become parents, too – particularly the women parents – as we seek ways to allow our work and family lives to function more effectively.… read more
It’s day ten of NaNoWriMo, and if you are keeping to the ideal daily word count of 50,000/30=1670, you will be approaching the 20k mark. If so, congratulations!
I started my first two novels with NaNo, and have sped each of the others on in November. Sadly, I’m not doing it this year – I’ve just handed in the second draft of my next one and really need to have a bit of a brain defrag before I embark on the next project.… read more
I’m very pleased and proud to have been asked to curate the book events for this year’s SICK! Festival.
SICK! is a multi-artform festival dedicated to revealing and debating our most urgent physical, mental and social challenges.
This year it is running simultaneously in Brighton and Manchester, and each weekend there will be a themed book event in each city.
If you are nearby, please do come along – we’ve booked some fantastic writers – from novelists to memoirists, academics, graphic novelists and professional practitioners.… read more
I am SO EXCITED!
During the Festival Fringe we have regularly rented a house or flat in some cheaper part of Edinburgh to accommodate family, friends and company members while my husband Tim puts on a show at the Traverse.
This means a part of my August has often been spent in a mad rush of shows, galleries, and keeping the children happy (Edinburgh Dungeon, Zoo, etc.) while the old man works. Hours, perhaps even days, have been spent eating chilli nachos and drinking Hendricks and tonic in the Traverse Bar, waiting for the next show, or for Tim to be interviewed, or meeting actors, playwrights, directors and bookers from around the world.… read more
Some of the quotes. Click on the image to enlarge it
Tonight is the launch party for The Long Fall. I’m too excited to write today, so instead here’s a round up of all the lovely bloggers’ reviews so far. I have been completely knocked out by the support of the blogging community – not least because all of that work and care comes from a love of books, nothing more or less. It’s totally heartening.… read more
Well, we’re exhausted after the geographically challenging but enormously exciting Long Fall Blog Tour. It’s going to take weeks to recover!
The final stop off is in rural Herefordshire at Chocolate Chunky Munkie, blog of Jenny, 34. Her favourite genres are Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Dystopian, Vampires and Shape Shifters, but luckily she also likes Thrillers and Female Literature. Her very popular blog has hundreds of reviews, as well as giveaways and interviews.
The Long Fall gig is an extract from a bit further into the novel.… read more
Sorry, this should have been posted yesterday. I was in York, though, doing a panel for the Festival of Ideas, ten days of over 120 mostly free events,with talks from world-class speakers, performances, exhibitions and interactive experiences for people of all ages.
I was talking about fly fishing.
Not really. I was talking about crime writing, with Colette McBeth, Tom Harper and Aly Monroe, chaired by Helen Cadbury.
There was quite a bit of travelling involved between Brighton and York, and there’s my tenuous link into my blog tour day six, which is my Dos and Don’ts for Travellers, a collection of top tips I have collated over many years of heading off at any opportunity, including my backpacking year off trip in 1980 that provides the backdrop to The Long Fall.… read more
My friend Ms Emma Kilbey finds a particularly shocking passage…
After a serene, heatwave-smoothed passage back home across the Irish sea, today’s Blog Tour stopoff is Erin’s Choice.
Erin is 23, and loves books. Her favourite genre is chick lit, but thankfully she can sometimes be persuaded to read the odd bit of crime fiction, too. There are hundreds of reviews, author interviews and guest reviews on her blog – no mean feat, as she has only been going for two years.… read more
