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Zite blog—writing from the edge of awkward

The Bogeyman (COVID-19 version)

20-Apr-20 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

THE BOGEYMAN   Look – just had a tip, sugar will be short, Bread next week, take a fiver from my drawer; Get everything you can, empty the shops, Stack up our cupboards, fill the freezer up. Must have our sugar, bread can`t do without, Must have our warm clothes, smart clothes – no holes, […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Independent bookshops: Lutyens and Rubinstein

24-Apr-19 By Martin Godleman Leave a Comment

Lutyens and Rubinstein This is a fascinating and successful experimental bookshop – two literary agents have committed their money, expertise and writing lists to create a bookshop in Notting Hill, directly opposite Notting Hill community church by the Kitchen and Pantry in Kensington Park Road. It enjoys the expected combination of antique markets versus bohemian […]

Filed Under: Independent Bookshops

Independent bookshops: A Zitebooks tour of this important, diminishing resource

9-Apr-19 By Martin Godleman Leave a Comment

Hatchards Hatchards is an independent specialist bookshop in Piccadilly founded by John Hatchard in 1797, located next to Fortnum and Mason, and opposite the Royal Academy. It has now quietly become part of the Waterstone’s group, but this doesn’t seem to have affected its unique grandiloquent feel. It is London’s oldest bookshop, the occupants having […]

Filed Under: Independent Bookshops

Neverland

10-Feb-19 By Pamela Pickton 1 Comment

  When I first began writing, I had friends who were painters, and I always said, `If you paint a picture, you can at least stick it up on a wall in your home; for your friends and relatives, and anyone else who comes to your house, to see.` My paper story I put in […]

Filed Under: Marketing, Uncategorized, Writing

Dear Doctor

21-Jan-19 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

or… WRONG DIAGNOSIS   Dear Doctor, `You should not have told your daughter,` you said. `She’s best out of it,` you said. Well done. Do you realise what you caused? What you were saying? I came to you because of marital problems. Even concerned for the husband who was causing so much misery. `Is it […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing Tagged With: divorce, Doctor Diagnosis, fetish, marriage, Pamela Pickton

Lindsay Pickton

10-Dec-18 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

  I knew a young teenage boy called Lindsay Patterson when I had the first two girls and did not plan any more children. But I did think the name Lindsay went well with our surname. I had never heard of it as a girls’ name. It was a Scottish town name, a Scottish clan name, there […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Dark Agenda

29-Sep-18 By Martin Godleman Leave a Comment

We live in a world where success has become a more vague concept. Some would say that it has a declining appeal. To become successful is to surrender your identity to the world, something scorned in the digital age. Fame has its price. A Dionysian feeding frenzy is likely to send you to the tabloids […]

Filed Under: Opinion

Lunch for the Needy

28-Sep-18 By Pamela Pickton 1 Comment

I am at the church which I sometimes attend, mostly for their social events such as a Harvest Suppermeal or one of their discussion groups and courses. These meals, For the Homeless, are run by a local charity, and churches in the area take their turn to be host, about twice a year. It works […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing Tagged With: Church Charity, Food for the Needy, Lunch for the Needy, Needy, Pamela Pickton

How I Came To Write ‘Reasons’

30-Jul-18 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

How I came to write the title story of my collection of short stories, Reasons. While studying for my Masters Degree in Creative Writing, I was fortunate to have Paul Bailey, novelist and critic, as my tutor for one option. The assignment was to write a 500 word story and I was unsure how to […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing Tagged With: Old Man Young Woman, Pamela Pickton, Reasons, zitebooks

Good Fairy, Bad Fairy

6-Jul-18 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

how I came to write Good Fairy, Bad Fairy For a period of time, I was separated from my youngest daughter. We could no longer live together. It was to do with my life situation which is described in my prose writing at the beginning of the Poetry Collection Windows. She was at a Sixth Form […]

Filed Under: Getting Published, Opinion, Writing

The Admirers

8-Jun-18 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THE ADMIRERS I once had a neighbour who always had four cats. If one died, got run over or met a similar fate, she straightaway got another. One day I was in her house and her cats were all around us. Her man friend, Kim, was there too. I said […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing Tagged With: Cats, Pamela Picton, Short Story, Windows

No Bananas

6-May-18 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

No Bananas When we had just returned from a two week’s holiday, my husband of a year – and you can see why it was not much longer – asked me, ‘Have we got any bananas?’ ‘Where would we have got them from?’ I replied. ‘Before we went away,’ he said. Holiday. Summer holiday. Like – […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

Roll On Tomorrow

20-Apr-18 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

Roll on Tomorrow Of all my four children, only my one son has an English degree like me. Like me, he loves words and language, and people, and he is very funny, in a quaint, dry sort of way. One day, as a very young teenager, he said, ‘I like the idea of the sort […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

Making Whoopee

21-Jan-18 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

Making Whoopee Lovelorn Laura was determined to turn her life around – with the help of a little lyrical loveliness. by Pamela Pickton “Oh, dear, what can the matter be?” sang the music as the keep-fit class bounced their bottoms on the floor. And, “Oh, dear, could we all fatter be?” sang Laura to herself.
She had […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Writing

The Books You Might Have Missed – Zitebooks Literary Review

29-Dec-17 By adminZ Leave a Comment

Our 2017 Zitebooks Christmas feature is our response to questions featured in Saturday’s Guardian’s Literary Review Supplement. Hope you enjoy them. James Goddard The book I am currently reading Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Someone at my book group suggested it last month as an ‘extra’ read. Ony about one third of the way through […]

Filed Under: Opinion

Christmas Greetings

11-Dec-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

`Posh people have better cards than most of us.` I remarked to my friend.`Yes, they do. Because they have rich friends.` Are they bigger? Mostly. Shinier? Or just of better quality material? However pretty, even beautiful, ours look like humble cottages next to Mansions Tall. The pretty, the beautiful, the funny, the well-crafted home-made. Still somehow scrappy next […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing Tagged With: Christmas Greetings

Unmasked

27-Oct-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

UNMASKED My last magazine story – A Love Like This – is true. Though I called it The Love Seat. It all happened much longer ago than five years. The two separate episodes, with two different partners, were twenty-five and ten years ago. Not the stuff magazine stories are made of, I thought. As I […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

Dynasty

14-Oct-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

My mother’s mother was born a Peircy and a distant relative, Brian Piercy, told me that anyone with either of these spellings is a Percy. He has done 40 years of research into the Percys. My great grandfather was cut off without a penny, as they say, for marrying beneath him. Though my mother always […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

Blessed Babies

13-Sep-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

I wonder if anyone else has ever laughed, as I have, at that poem by Eleanor Farjeon called, `When I Live In A Cottage`? The poet lists what idyllic things she would like to have in her dream cottage, including dogs, cows, goats, apple trees, and rosebushes, cats with kittens, and beehives. `And one blessed baby […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

Genesis and Catastrophe

5-Sep-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

Woman created everything there is. Who else could have? Does she not make everything? The dinner, the home. Conceive, carry, give birth to the baby, then rear it? She made land first in the hope that good would come out of it, and sustenance for her. But then she divided the land into smaller bits, […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

Neighbours

21-Aug-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

Oh, she couldn’t have put it in the bin, could she? Not in the massive landfill bin – outside, in the flats’ private car park, next to the separate bins for cardboard and things. How could you possibly ever find anything in there? But, yes, she had emptied her kitchen bin out there this morning. […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

A Love Like This

19-Aug-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

I don’t expect it to be there. It couldn’t be, could it? Not after all those years? But at least if the restaurant were still there… Well, it would do something, though I can’t think what. I can only think of that little tingle, inside my heart, when I remember the ingle nook. Oh, tingle […]

Filed Under: Writing

Matchbox

10-Jul-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

MATCHBOX OR `My matchbox finally takes his bow.` I knew my publisher would not allow such a long title, so I am beginning with it. I called the last blog Cabbages and Kings and a Matchbox, because I mention a member of my family who could make a matchbox sound interesting. But he got removed. Left out. You […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

Cabbages and Kings

1-Jul-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

            A long time ago, when I had just spent time with a friend who had recently been to Disney Florida, when it was very new. I remember being amazed at how little they had to say about the experience. And I thought how somebody in my family could make […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

History Repeats

18-Jun-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

HISTORY REPEATS LONDON FIRE. GREAT FIRE OF LONDON History has shown us the Holocaust of the Jews, of American Indians, of the Aborignes. Of women, the black, of the poor. Devastations come thick and fast now: Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge. This week, the fire. Many thinkers have claimed that what happens in the world, including […]

Filed Under: Opinion, Writing

‘What about Sets?’ I asked, carefully…

6-Jun-17 By Simon Jay Leave a Comment

When you do a fringe show, on a limited budget, especially when it’s essentially, a ‘one-person show’, you’re rather limited about what you can create in terms of set. In past shows, I’ve just not bothered with anything, especially when touring. I mean I did a whole tour with a plastic joke-shop arm as the […]

Filed Under: Writing, Zite News Tagged With: audible, audiobook, audiobook free trial, author, bbc, bbcthree, book, book cover design, book editing, book editor, book publishing, books, bullying (film subject), cyber bullying, download free audiobook, ebook, editing a book, gay, how to become an editor, how to write a book, ian gunn, iangncl, indiana, kindle ebook narration, lesbian, lgbt (tv genre), lgbt advocate, library, literature, novel, pride, publishing, reading, rfra, self-publishing, talk show, talking, three, writer, writing

I haven’t a Stitch to Wear (Fashion Ideas for Performance)

5-Jun-17 By Simon Jay Leave a Comment

First things first. If you’re going to do a show based on your book, you’ve got to dress in something fabulous and sums up your aesthetic. The thing is, my natural dressage is lazy. I like to refer to it as shambolic chic. I often play other characters, so one has a costume and therefore […]

Filed Under: Zite News Tagged With: budget friendly style, cheap fashion, clothing goals, clothing hacks, diy clothing hacks, fashion, fashion blogger, fashion colors, fashion designs, fashion forecaster, fashion foreever 21, fashion hacks, fashion haul, fashion ideas, fashion review, fashion trend report, fashion trends, h & m, leepakshi ellawadi, online shopping stores, organization, pocket friendly fashion, rybka, shopping guide, simple clothing hacks, stardust, style forecaster, style trends 2017, styling trends, summer fashion, summer haul, top fashion trends, top trends, trend alert, twins, vogue, vogue collection, vogue trends, zaful fashion, zaful fashion haul

Hot, Cross Bun

5-Jun-17 By Pamela Pickton 1 Comment

So much to ‘blog’ about, and here’s another from my esteemed quiver. One of my fans asked me yesterday, ‘When are we going to get a new one?’ So, here we go. But where? Bombings and other hells. The election – and, When exactly are we ‘old’? At what age have people the right to […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Bastardography – A Queer, Creative, Mental Health Theatre Odyssey

4-Jun-17 By Simon Jay Leave a Comment

It’s just over two weeks before I take the Balham stage to bring my book Bastardography to life. The play’s subtitle is ‘A queer, creative, mental health odyssey’. With a background in theatre (no sniggering at the back, there!) it seems a natural fit to create a unique theatrical experience based on the book rather than […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Zite News

What On Earth Do You Do All Day?

26-Apr-17 By Pamela Pickton Leave a Comment

Over the years I have become depressed by the continual digs about not having been out to work a great deal in my life. I wonder if anyone has ever considered that it could be that you don’t go to work because you don’t have a job? You may well have entered your child rearing years […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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