Authors Electric

  December Dawn... Some years ago, along with several other authors, I was invited to read a Christmas story on local radio. Any short story or an excerpt from a longer piece of fiction, as long as it was set at Christmas. I chose a few pages from The Labyrinth Year, book two of my family saga set in the mid-1990s, which describes my protagonists, a young couple, Jenny and Max, taking their five year old  daughter Alice to her first Christmas carol service. It’s a super-middle-class story of warm feelings, bright candles, a lovely Tree, and excellent singing from the choir. Alice is spellbound by the Crib, and after staring a while, asks where the baby is? Mum Jenny recalls when she first met Max, in Cambridge at the end of term, and how he insisted on taking her to a carol service at his college. Max is reminded how his rather grim Dad, a Presbyterian Minister, would have disdained the ‘flummery’, as he saw it, of all this glittery nonsense in a church. So, what exactly is C...

  If you are a fan of Friends you might remember Phoebe uttering those memorable words in a certain Christmas episode of the show. It caused a laugh. As did much of what came out of the hapless Phoebe’s mouth to be honest. And it is still watched as a meme on YouTube – the clip I found lasts all of 4 seconds and has had 8.1K views. Yes, today is the day before the day before the big event. What does that mean to you? Perhaps you are still frantically last minute shopping, especially food and drink, maybe even presents. Perhaps it is your last day of work before the holidays begin. Perhaps, like me it is a day to consolidate. How far have I got with the wrapping? Have I got enough sprouts? What needs to go on my 'to do' list for Christmas Eve? Is the cake iced, the pastry defrosting, the cookies made? Or perhaps you are just ignoring the fact that it is all kicking off the day after tomorrow, and burying yourself in a Christmas movie marathon, the mulled wine at hand. I wonde...