(This piece of flash fiction originated as an exercise in a creative writing class. The task was to tell about a barn and a man whose son has been killed without saying it is a barn or that the son has died in the war.) I push open the great doors. They groan, echoing my pain. This ... Read More
How Do Authors Over 60 Define Career Success? by Marylee MacDonald Career success for writers over 60 looks quite different from the success of writers profiled in such places as The New Yorker’s 20 Best Writers Under 40 or Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. Writers in their 60s, 70s, and 80s can’t enter these literary ... Read More
“Perhaps that sums it up – this story to date, that is. The mistakes, the missed clues, the silly pride, and all the self-pity. And finding love in unexpected places.” (Timed Out) Timed Out, published in my seventies, is a ‘coming of age’ story in two senses. My character Jane Lambert is sixty when the ... Read More
Arthur Tillotson squirms trussed and gagged in the centre of a huge circle of red-robed young women. Most of their pretty faces show fear, a few anger, a very few pity; all of them show resolution. They have removed their wide-brimmed bonnets but kept on their little white caps. A voice announces, “Girls, this man ... Read More
1.Don’t lend books.. 2.Don’t borrow books, except from libraries. 3.Review books on Amazon and Goodreads. 4.If libraries say they haven’t a copy, persist. 5.If bookshops say they haven’t a copy, persist. 6.Suggest contemporary writers for your book club. 7.Support independent bookshops. 8.Go to signings, events, literary festivals – and buy books. 9.Give books as presents. ... Read More
Found in a folder of old notes pre-dating my novel Timed Out in which a rather different version appears briefly. “Afraid of dying alone? Don’t be. Find yourself a carer. Internet dating is the answer,” all over the country decrepit men are telling their decrepit friends. And all over the country, lonely women are egging ... Read More
Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope you have enjoyed your tour of our renowned university city. And I do hope you have not had difficulty in understanding me. Yours is not a language we teach in our schools, but once we had found out that you still exist a few of us have endeavoured to learn ... Read More
My novel Timed Out is usually classified as ‘mature romance’ or ‘women’s literary fiction’. (I snobbishly prefer ‘literary fiction’ though I know that doesn’t sell books.) It is about an older woman trying to turn her life around after she retires, doing Internet dating and also pondering again the Big Questions. On its book page Amazon.co.uk lists ... Read More
John Crace Being Dead. Begins with a gruesome murder and then traces the victims’ lives leading up to that moment, and describes in detail the putrefaction of the corpses. I was too squeamish for this, though John Crace as a writer of beautiful and evocative prose is second to none. Margaret Drabble The Dark Flood Rises. A ... Read More
