Authors Electric

Macbeth: unlikely to turn readers into mass murderers Today’s post may well raise a few eyebrows, coming as it does from a keen fiction writer and reader. Because I want to talk about something that’s increasingly been bothering me: the power of fiction to corrupt.  I don’t mean that reading Macbeth might turn you into a mass murderer; nor am I talking about mingling fiction with history to make a better story (eg Netflix’s The Crown )  –  though that habit is problematic in the way it plants events in the public’s unconscious that never took place.  What’s got me going is a superb series on BBC 4 called Wild Brazil . The programmes are beautifully made, with extraordinary photography, closely following animal activity in the stunning Pantanal and wild mountain regions of Brazil, focussing on three species in particular: giant otters, coatis and capuchin monkeys. Giant otters  So what’s my problem?  Here’s a clue: the BBC website describes the series as ‘an...

Recently, I was having an online argument with someone about the BBC. She wanted to abolish it. I pointed out that it didn’t just put out TV and radio programmes, but for a few measly quid a week there was Cardiff Singer of the Year, Young Musician of the Year, the link with Open University, the emerging artistes programme for singers and musicians, support for choirs, orchestras, and also such public amenities as weather reports, the shipping forecast, education packages for schools…etc. etc. ‘People don’t want that,’ she retorted. Really? Then recently a sound engineer was explaining the difficulty she was in during the covid crisis. She is self-employed, so did qualify for the government’s belated financial help, which included those in the creative industries, who were unable to work at present. Ah, but then she was offered a contract for a theatre job, so effectively stopped being self-employed for the duration. But she had a job anyway, right? Wrong! Theatres were closed. She, ...

I have known what it was like to be on the front pages of newspapers, or the subject of a double-page spread inside the Independent .  Television interviews, radio shows – my 15 minutes of fame.  It was fantastic being chauffeur driven across London, with a huge bouquet of lilies and roses on my lap, to a champagne reception. The reviews were glowing and I’ll never forget the experience of walking into WH Smith and seeing my book, in hardback, at number 8 in the best-seller lists.  The six figure sums of money being bandied about were head-turning. ‘You’ll never have to worry about money again in your life,’ my agent said.  I should have known! The doomed hardback It was a story of luck and also of danger. I was commissioned to write a biography of Catherine Cookson just after she died, for a very modest sum. The estate wanted a northern author and, as a respected literary biographer, they thought I was eminently suitable.  But I’m also a natural detec...

Weather, drama and emotions seem to go together , so whichever unfortunate would-be author who first wrote these infamous words did have some idea of what he/she was doing. Rain and tears seem to go together. I remember seeing a film in which a disastrous marriage played a major part, where the camera focussed, during the wedding scene, not on the bridal couple, but on the raindrops 'weeping' down the stained glass windows of the church. For the last few days, we've had heat and humidity in London, but only one dramatic storm. It's felt like being around someone who bears me a grudge, but won't come out and say so. The sky is sullen, and there are distant rumbles of thunder, but nothing happens. Later, there might be a storm when we can really sort things out - scream, yell and hit each other - oh the relief! But in the meantime, there's this grey, silent, endless, hot, debilitating SULK. And while I often cringe at  forecasts that anthropomorphise the weat...

This week is the centenary of Norman Nicholson’s birth. ‘Norman who?’ I can hear people ask. I wonder how many of you recognised the name of the most celebrated Lake District poet after Wordsworth - a writer whose work has suffered undeserved neglect since he died in 1987?  I'm guessing very few. But, hopefully, all that is about to change. Today the BBC are broadcasting a documentary about his life on Radio 4, at 4.30pm.   'Provincial Pleasures' is narrated by Eric Robson (moonlighting from Gardener’s Question Time) and contributors include Melvyn Bragg, fellow biographer Grevel Lindop and myself. There are also going to be lots of activities defying the notorious Lakeland weather throughout January.  On his 100th birthday, the 8th, I’m going to be at a ‘party’ at Carlisle Library - where the speakers will include some of his surviving friends and relatives. Researching and writing an ‘Indie’ biography from start to finish has been an interesting - often challeng...

The short list for the BBC National Short Story Award has just been announced and it's a shocker!  There are no men on it... ( David Gilmour take note)  At £15,000 this is one of the most valuable prizes in literature, and it emphasises the short story's status as a literary art form.  The high value we place on the short story is a big contrast with its lack of appeal as a commercial publishing prospect.  Fewer and fewer publishers are accepting them and then only as a gesture towards their best-selling authors.  Newspaper and magazine outlets have also dwindled. But, readers like short stories and writers like writing them.  The result is a flourishing Indie-publishing scene for short fiction - not just in book form, but also in E-zines and blogs and Facebook groups.  People are reading Flash fiction on their mobile phones and downloading stories onto their I-pads from sites where you can read any kind of fiction from erotic to murderous, ...