Tag: featured
Among Thieves: Inspiration
Since the deal announcement for my debut novel went out a little over a year ago, I have legitimately lost count of how many times I have been asked what inspired me to write AMONG THIEVES. The super fun thing is that every time someone asks me this question, I suddenly forget every single word […]
The Enduring Lessons that I Learnt at the Curtis Brown Creative Novel-Writing Course
It’s nearly ten years since I attended the novel-writing course at Curtis Brown Creative, and it’s not too bold a claim to say that those three short months changed the course of my professional life forever – helping me to subsequently find an agent and a publisher, and now have five published novels to my […]
The Zigzag Path of Writing a Novel – Rebecca Hodge
The writing universe abounds with how-to advice: write daily, write on-the-fly, plan everything, plan nothing, be sure to buy a special pen, a special notebook, the one and only brand of tea. The only thing we can all agree on is the fact that there’s no one-size-fits-all pathway to creating a novel, and indeed, what […]
On Writing “The Swing”: Reflections of a Reluctant Memoirist
By Susan Dennis I am the widow of a passionate black and white landscape photographer. I fell in love with him on our first date and our twenty-four years together flew by. I buried him with two rolls of film, one in each pocket and carried a favorite camera to his funeral. After he died, […]
On Writing Love and Fury: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft
I know the look by now. You tell someone you’ve just written a book about Mary Wollstonecraft. Their eyes light up but then there’s a flicker of self-doubt. “Not the daughter,” I jump in, “The mother. In fact, not just the mother of Mary Shelley, but feminism itself!” I know the look because I did […]
Finding Cecily
Finding Cecily I can’t remember not being able to read. I know Mum taught me, long before school started. It wasn’t that she was a pushy mother. Just that she loved stories and wanted to give me a key to unlock them. We soon left children’s books behind. By 10 or so I’d just read […]
Inspired by Sisterhood: Anarchy In High Heels
In the 1970s and early ‘80s I was a member of an all-female troupe of performers. This group, Les Nickelettes, occupied a defining place in my life story. Based in San Francisco, Les Nickelettes was a bit too radical for the mainstream of the time, but received a lot of attention in the underground counterculture. […]
Adult Bibs, Evasive Mint: Creating Character Memes
My family of Boomers and Millennials is just concluding a week-long reunion. We have matured and ripened over the years so this recent gathering was rife with laughter and devoid of the tensions from gatherings in the past. The twenty-and-thirty-something cousins all get along now, respecting each other’s differences, and embracing each other’s partners, and […]
On Being a Writer and an Accountant
On being a writer and an accountant by Gill Darling You may not be surprised to learn that accountancy is not a subject covered much in fiction. The novel that springs first to mind is Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry by the avant-garde novelist BS Johnson, published in 1973. Christie, young and disaffected, hits on […]
Authors Interviewing Characters Series: Jaye Viner
Character Interview with Jane Dalton, wife of the Vanguard terrorist known as Bones, from JANE OF BATTERY PARK by Jaye Viner About JANE OF BATTERY PARK Jane is a Los Angeles nurse who grew up in a Christian cult that puts celebrities on trial for their sins. Daniel is a has-been actor whose career ended […]
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