Authors Electric

Two things to blog about this month, one run-of-the-mill, the other a bit special, which fully deserves the adjective 'inspiring'. First, the ordinary. While I'm sorting out the final draft of   The Nightmares of Invasion, the second in the Bright Sea Dark Graves trilogy, I'm also putting together another collection of short stories, some already published, others new, for my private JOSLIN BOOKS imprint. This is one of the many, many things I like about independent publishing. It's almost like being a poet making a retrospective New and Selected, something it would be really, really foolish to ask a publisher to do unless you are incredibly famous. And to make Createspace paperbacks out of them as well as ebooks gives the whole project a sort of three-dimensional quality, a mark of permanence. Even if nobody buys them, they are still there to be had and that in itself, is a great comfort. So this time I'm taking two already commercially published storie...

It's odd. I started writing this blog in February. We then spent the last week before we came home from Down Under without wi-fi. And when we came home, I found my unscheduled draft had disappeared. Just like that. A blogging mystery. But no matter. It consisted mainly of a quick description of Naomi Klein's amazing book  This Changes Everything.  However, I wasn't to know that the Guardian was about to do a huge feature, including a part-serialisation which treats the book as seriously as it deserves.  So I won't add my own puny comments - except to say that the book is as important as the Guardian says it is. Perhaps it will start at last a movement powerful enough to dislodge the forces pledged to destroy us all. I'm waiting for the inevitable neo-liberal backlash. Not yet though - and could it be that there are signs that for the first time they might find it difficult. The Daily Telegraph gave the book a rave review and maybe that's a hint that the ne...

I feel I'm writing two blogs, not just one, this month.  The first is current news: the second is  the outcome of deeply felt experience which needs to be said because, though happening far away, it concerns us all - a process from which nobody can call themselves safe. 1. Trivial Trivial matters first. I've counted myself an indie author now for over three years and shall remain so. You are probably fed up with hearing me prattle on about a golden publishing summer of years ago. But, most unexpectedly, I find I'm a conventionally published writer again - in a small way: a mere toehold in the big wide world.. I'm pleased - no, not just pleased, I'm delighted, though I don't regard it as another career change. I'm committed to indieism, if there is such a word. I and some colleagues in Writers in Oxford are embarking on a new publishing venture of our own, of which more another time.  Some years ago I wrote some short books for Evans, once a...