An Evening of New WritingCanadian author Alayna Munce will be reading from her new book, When I was Young and in my Prime.‘Moving, funny, full of hard truths’ – The Globe and Mail, CanadaWith local authors; Kay Sexton, co-author of Two Tall Tales and One Short Novel,‘Inventive in language and exuberant in narrative’ – Russell […]

Endings and beginnings … Tomorrow will be a bittersweet day for me. I shall be handing over the reins (or even reigns) of Brighton (and Hove actually) National Novel Writing Month to my excellent successors, Fiona Wallace and Alex Allsworth. After three years I thought it was time to step aside and let somebody else […]

Ellen Meister resplendent! Ellen’s hilarious novel, Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA (hereafter SCAPTA) which features George Clooney, has gone into paperback and she’s currently cybertouring – I caught up with her online and posed a few questions about the success of her first novel and what comes next: Hardback to paperback is a big […]

Posted by on Aug 21, 2007 in interview, kelly spitzer | No Comments

An interview … Nothing from me today, rather, about me. Sorry for the self-promotion, but this interview was such fun to do that I refuse to feel modest about talking to the indefatigable Kelly Spitzer at http://www.kellyspitzer.com. And I want to thank her for showcasing me in this way; it’s a generous thing to do […]

Posted by on Aug 16, 2007 in research, veracity | No Comments

How far do you go … For research purposes? I ask because in discussion with a fellow editor recently, she was horrified to discover I’d chewed paan (betel nut wrapped in a betel leaf with other aromatics – somewhat confusingly, betel nut and betel leaf come from two completely different plants) when I was in […]

We need to talk about titles (again) With apologies to Lionel Shriver. If you think I sounded jaded, I do. I’ve been reading slush for an anthology and while some of the work has been great, the absolute mind-numbing tedium of so many of the titles has broken my will to live. Listen up writers […]

Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 in editing, revising | 8 Comments

When it’s rubbish … What do you do? One of the most difficult things to decide is when a story is rubbish and when it just hasn’t arrived on the right desk yet. If you listen to the myths, you’ll hear that many an award-winning story was almost relegated to the back of the drawer, […]

I am a bookmother! Seriously. The inimitable Bunny Goodjohn stayed for a couple of nights on her way back to the USA, and we had a wonderful time. Well, I had a wonderful time and I hope she did too. Her novel, Sticklebacks and Snowglobes, will be published in October and she brought me the […]

Cold River Review redux and Clockwork Phoenix opening Go and read their copyright page. Kudos to Mr Sandoe and his team for what they’ve done to put things right. I said I would sing their praises and I am – believe me, all editors make mistakes (I know I have) and it takes guts to […]