The author, his writing and more
As a novel writer, people’s names are important. A character called Imogen is hardly likely to react the same way as one called Lucie. Just say the two names out loud. The different sounds immediately conjure up contrasting traits.… Read more
I was deeply saddened to read that the high court in England has just ruled to severely curtail, if not forbid, access to puberty blockers for young people under 18 (See the article in The Guardian). This applies to GIDS at the Tavistock Institute, the sole clinic in England working with transgender children.… Read more
One of the suggestions of the author Neil Gaiman in his writing Master Class involved drawing up lists of related words close to the preoccupations of a forthcoming novel. In my experience, being someone who has an inspirational approach to writing, such word lists not only activate a rich store of vocabulary, but also give depth to the subject and nourish the narrative.… Read more
Listen to the author reading The boy who told himself stories.The beginnings of the story…
Even as a kid I used to tell myself stories. All the time. In my bed, at school, on the high street, in the library, on the bus home or the train, out on my bike roaming the countryside.… Read more
One of the fascinating things about imagining the world through the ‘eyes’ of a cloud, something I am obliged to do as I write The Cloud Catcher, is how startlingly different and alien that perspective appears to us humans and how incomprehensible we must seem to a cloud.… Read more
The third book of The Boy & Girl Saga, We Girls, has just been released and is available in ebook format. Links to information about the book, to read sample chapters and to buy your copy can be found here.… Read more
I am currently writing two novels at once. The first is Bursting With Life which is half written, and The Cloud Catcher which I have just begun. Very often, especially towards the end of drafting a novel, an idea for a new story arises spontaneously and clamours to be told.… Read more
While it is true that frustrating your characters moves the narrative forward and holds the reader’s attention, does that have to entail going to extremes? In the struggle to gain and retain an audience, an increasing number of authors are tempted by the extreme.… Read more
The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while arresting him has sparked widespread demonstrations both in the US but also in other countries against police brutality and in favour of the Black Lives Matter movement.… Read more
The COVID pandemic has revealed many things, not all of them very welcome, and empowered people to speak out openly although not always to good effect. The crisis has the potential to shake up rigidly held beliefs, like the nature of schooling and the role of the curriculum.… Read more