Authors Electric

Book 1,  'The Raven Boys' by Maggie Stiefvater   I've never had a book recommended to me by Pinterest before. I don't know why Pinterest started sending me regular emails. I didn't, to my knowledge, ask for them. Maybe I accidentally toggled some toggle or another. Whatever the reason, for some months now, Pinterest has been sending me emails every few days, featuring 'fan art.' I'm fine with it. I didn't ask for them, but I rather enjoy looking at the cartoons, fan-art 'book covers', portraits of favourite characters and illustrations of favourite scenes, while trying to pick out the real art-work from the AI. I've never read, or even heard of, most of the books mentioned but that's okay. There are an awful lot of books in the world. As the emails came in, it was soon obvious that a great number of them featured a series of books called 'The Raven Boys Cycle' by Maggie Stiefvater. Judging by the number of fans doing art for ...

This month, I bring you some exciting adult fiction by one of the first women to train racehorses in the UK, Jenny Pitman. She has won two Grand Nationals, and in 1984 became the first woman to train a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, winning it again in 1991 when her son Mark was the jockey. She retired from training in 1999. On the Edge Her first novel On the Edge could almost be autobiographical. It follows the fortunes of racehorse trainer Jan Hardy, recently bereaved and left to bring up two young children, as she buys a rundown farm on a Gloucestershire hillside and sets out to transform the place into a training yard fit for thoroughbreds. She starts by running her horses in point-to-points, and soon builds a reputation for turning out winners. Encouraged by her success and her owners, she applies for a licence to train National Hunt racehorses running under rules, but first her stables must pass the Jockey Club's inspection... which, with a temporary canvas roof still over her ...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Images of the north-east coast of Scotland were taken by me, Allison Symes.   By the time this goes out on Authors Electric , I would have just returned from a wonderful week away on the beautiful north-east coast of Scotland, which is somewhere I am always pleased to head. Going here makes me feel as if I have got right away from it all.   But how would our characters have the change of scene which does them the world of good and can be a pivotal story point? Would they have to literally get away from where they are based or would the right conversation with a mentor like character be enough to give them a change of scene in terms of seeing what they now have to do when before they could not? A change of scene doesn’t need to be for something as dramatic as for a quest story, though it is the obvious route to go. A minor change can often be enough to get the character through something.  For example, ...

I’ve dealt with Spectator competitions before, but last week husband Bob and I managed the double – after two years of trying. So in celebration of this momentous event, I shall post both the winning entries and ask you to guess who wrote which. We’ve tried this out at various groups we go to, and only one got them right. Indeed, the members of the creative writing group we both attend got them all wrong. So I’ll include a couple of other winners I’ve had recently, with the challenges, and see if you want to have a go at them yourselves. I had quite a few winners initially, and then it was eight months until I had another. I once had a friend who wrote songs, as well as poetry, and she tried several times to get one selected for the UK Eurovision entry, and did get shortlisted. But the one piece of advice she received I have always remembered: Try and get the word radio into your lyrics somehow. This often ensures it gets played. So on the same principle, I included the word Spectator ...

Who doesn’t love a good brawl between writers…from the safety of the stands? Though the bad boy glory days are gone in our cancel ’em corporate culture, not long ago bad press and scandal were generally tickets to ride.              Ernest Hemingway knocked the stuffing out of the twenty-years-older Wallace Stevens and went on to boast about it. He hit Max Eastman on the head with a heavy tome after  Max claimed in a review that Hem wore glued-on chest hair. And he got good press, though he lost, from his boxing match with Morley Callahan.             Norman Mailer, Hem’s disciple, headbutted Gore Vidal in a TV interview. Norm went on to stab his wife and pound for fifteen minutes on Thomas Pynchon’s door, enraged by a bad review–only to learn that Pynchon had fled down the back fire escape.             Hunter...

There are fantasy novels built on spectacle, and then there are fantasy novels built on emotional truth. Shattered Energy: A Memory in Time by Athena Plencner manages to deliver both. At its center is Ariyana, a woman whose terrifying dreams begin to unravel the reality she thought she knew, forcing her to confront loss, identity, and the dangerous truths buried inside her own memory. As we celebrate Mother’s Day here in the United States, it feels especially fitting to talk about a novel whose heroine remains, through all the chaos and revelations surrounding her, a fiercely loving and deeply protective mother. Even while facing impossible choices, Ariyana’s concern for her children never leaves the emotional center of the story. I spoke with Athena Plencner about memory, dragons, fear, vulnerability, and building worlds that feel both epic and deeply human. Dianne Pearce: The idea that Ariyana’s dreams are actually memories is so compelling. What sparked that concept for you? Ariyan...

  Margery Allingham was a May baby, born into this gorgeous month of fresh grass and leaves, when the air is scented by honeysuckle or wild garlic; peonies, giant poppies and alliums are bursting balls of colour; the annual miracles of lilac and wisteria cascade in elegant fragrancies. As a lonely child, moving from suburban London to Layer Breton, Essex, she learned to love the unkempt garden of a decaying country rectory for its wildness and sense of possibility.  As a successful adult, living in Essex once again, she and her husband gave parties in their garden, employed a full-time gardener and exhibited prize roses in the local horticultural shows. That was never the heart of its meaning. Margery’s garden remained a sanctuary, a place where she could achieve ‘ a momentary clarity of mind, which will give me a definite lead at least to the next step in whatever I may be about .’ (Oaken Heart p115). When she experienced breakdown in mid-April 1955 she was seen wandering t...