I recently stayed in a holiday resort where there were a lot of retired fire fighters, many of them having been injured on the job, some permanently. I got talking to groups of them and some got up from the table where we had been eating and talking, stiffly, and with difficulty, clearly in pain. […]
Writing
Our authors discuss the writing process
The Author’s Voice
This is the first time that I have wanted to reply to The Author. It was the editor’s letter which drew me, and words like author’s voice… authenticity. I was going to add genius to the list, but just now on the third reading I find the word is not there. I will pretend it was. It was when I […]
On Display
My summer has been marked by spikes of joy; three in all. That’s the three times I saw my book in Chiswick Waterstones, on display, in three different locations. First, it was in a window display, next to Max Hastings, well not him in person, but next to his tome: ‘The Secret War: Spies, Codes […]
The Way I Write
There were not a lot of books in the house because I was brought up by a single mum who was working two jobs, but I do remember a comic that used to get delivered every Saturday morning. There was this story about these cats ‘Drag A Chair Puss Cat’ and ‘Never Hangs His Coat […]
Dystopian Fiction – why dystopia?
Why Dystopia? The issue of why writers might want to take up the challenge of writing a dystopian novel is a complex one. After all, a writer’s vision of a future society is invariably going to be miserable because, if you think about it, why would anyone want to read about a brilliant future […]