Authors Electric

I hear other writers talking about how they always/never re-read their own work. Of those that do – many say they cringe as they see their mistakes, or worry that it’s all rubbish in hindsight, and no wonder they never sell any books as who would want to read it anyway? And I don't understand the mentality of those writers who never re-read their books - why would you not do this? I have a confession to make. Not only do I constantly re-read my own books, but I actually do on occasion (actually, frequently) pat myself on the back for a particularly well-executed turn of phrase, or a paragraph that resonates perfectly, or a character that I’m still slightly in love with. Yes, of course I see the odd typo that escaped both mine and my agent or editor’s eagle eyes – and I do kick myself for word repetition and a clunky sentence I really should have caught on one of the many editing passes I do. But by and large, I’m happy with much (most?) of what I have written. Sometimes I even thi...

In response to popular demand (thanks, Griselda!) I’ve decided this month’s post will be a sequel to the one published here last month, when I was wrestling with various ideas for presenting something about my suffragette great-aunt, Janet McCallum (‘Auntie Jenny’) at an International Women’s Day event. Extract from a Daily Mirror report (1908) First of all, my session didn’t go entirely as planned. Not that I had planned it exactly, since I wasn’t at all sure how many people would turn up or what the technological facilities might consist of on the day. Or perhaps I might be kinder to myself and claim I had planned for all eventualities! One thing I hadn’t anticipated was that people didn’t really understand the programme for the event, which lasted just over half a day in all. There were some things such as ‘crafts and coffee’ that ran throughout the whole event, and some things that theoretically only lasted half an hour or so. What really happened was that people wandered from on...

Sometimes I get stopped in my tracks when something I am currently reading has an unexpected to connection to something I see on the news, or on TV or in a play. You may remember a couple of months ago I wrote about The Great Divide , a novel I listened to which resonated because the Panama Canal was in the news at the time. A couple of months ago while perusing my to-be-read shelf (I have more than just a pile) I picked out a novel called A Song for Kitty by Angela Cairns . I had bought it at a local author event over a year ago and it is a signed copy. The titular character, Kitty, is a real person - Katherina Maria Schäfer born in Germany in 1871. Her stage name was Kitty Marion and she performed in the Music Halls before the first World War. She was also a prominent suffragette, standing up for women’s rights by participating in civil unrest, including arson. She was arrested and went on hunger strike on more than one occasion for the cause. Kitty Marion She isn’t the main char...

                                               Seventy-Five Years     “TWENTY-FOUR YEARS remind the tears of my eyes.” So wrote Dylan Thomas in 1938. He was, although he didn’t know it, only to live another fifteen years longer, before dying from acute alcohol poisoning in New York during a reading tour of his poems.   I first came to his poetry in 1966 when I was in Broadgreen Hospital in Liverpool, recovering from a cartilage operation. There, as chance would have it, I fell in with a fellow patient, Alan, who spoke enthusiastically of Dylan Thomas and recommended that I read his poems. I duly did so, and my edition of his  Collected Poems 1934-1952  which I have beside me now is inscribed Peter Leyland Liverpool. 1967.   Now, as I begin my seventy sixth year it occurs to me reflexively that five of them have passed since the beginning o...