Too many (or two many) things to write about So, first and foremost – I’m taking part in an excellent event, called Fear of the Dark, organised by the lovely James Burt. He’s put together some information about the event, and I can’t do better than give it to you verbatim (as it were): Fear […]

Words: handle with care My book club this month is reading Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, and one particular section fascinated me. His character, Cal, says, “Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words … I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, ‘the happiness that attends disaster’. Or: […]

Bread and books Somebody emailed to ask if I’ve stopped making bread. Not so! The thing is, I make bread two or three times a week and one loaf looks very much like another (very much like Enid Blyton’s Famous Five novels, according to my disapproving mother when I was a girl, although I remember […]

Still Sleepless in Brighton Being a writer introduces you to many new experiences. I’m having one right now. Excellent Agent (hereinafter EA) wants revisions to novel #1. Good revisions too. Novel #2 has gone off for a bursary read to a literary consultancy. Novel #3 is around 35,000 words. Normally (if anything is normal in […]