Out and about: an author’s tale

“…you can’t sit around and wait for someone to discover you…” Olafur Arnalds, composer.

As an independent novelist, one of the major dilemmas – rather like the young Arnalds seeking to get his compositions played having not followed the traditional channels for a would-be composer – was that her novels only made sense if they were (widely) read.… Read more

The Book of Dust

Delighted to learn from the Guardian that Philip Pullman is to publish a new trilogy set in the same context and with some of the characters from his earlier trilogy, His Dark Materials. The new trilogy will be entitled The Book of Dust and the first volume is due out in October 2017.… Read more

The role of the editor

The Art of Editing is an interesting podcast from the Guardian in its books series that is well worth listening to. For someone who lives abroad in voluntary linguistic exile, like myself, the mix of voices and the variety of accents is refreshing; so unlike the schooled tones of BBC Radio Four news programmes or the seasoned actors who narrate the audiobooks I enjoy so much. … Read more