Some people who like to see and hold a printed copy, and that is what you can provide at a book launch or a literary festival talk. And meeting people is fun, even if you don’t break even when you have factored in your time and the refreshments. I have arranged two launches for my ... Read More
With my DeQuervain’s tenosynovitis (posh person’s repetitive strain injury), I’ve been writing less and reading more. And Going to Things. Less of a home body and more of a woman about town on the cultural scene in Oxford. Blackwell’s Bookshop hosted an author event with Roma Tearne on her latest novel ‘The Last Pier’. I ... Read More
Another short list: for my first and probably only ghost story, which bears the peculiar title ‘Potter, Dimity, Lilies.’ When they announced this news, Spooky Tales/What the Dickens? Magazine promised an ebook anthology and – how lovely! – a paper edition as well. Several months and emails later I have discovered that the anthology has ... Read More
Over the last three days I’ve experienced at second hand what it is like to be sought after by the media. It’s been exciting. My friend Nora Crook, Professor Emerita at Anglia Ruskin University and a noted Shelley scholar, has discovered some Mary Shelley letters in the Essex Record Office and the news ‘broke’ while ... Read More
Someone who knows what she is talking about told me that I’d be wasting my time approaching agents with a novel of only 60,000 words. Unless I’m Julian Barnes or Heinrich von Kleist. Perhaps it isn’t ‘fully realised’ ? That’s the posh way of saying skimpy and trivial. What’s to be done? I hate long ... Read More
You’ll probably recognise the problem: if you delay writing to your friends with your news, the news builds up and the challenge of producing a catch-up becomes very daunting. In January I began a University of East Anglia/Guardian part-time course at UEA’s London campus. Two things drew me: the tutor is Adam Foulds whose novel ... Read More
