Authors Electric

Sometimes it feels as if the modern age is defined by health problems, conditions that stem from our living longer, or in a different kind of society, or sometimes it’s just a case of being able to use technology to redefine something that always existed. And so we now have anorexia, depression and obesity,which had different names or no names at all in previous generations.  After my granny had lived with us for a few years, she began to be ‘wandered’, a state that progressed to confused, difficult and eventually downright aggressive. We knew here was a physical cause but could not have explained it. Now it's called dementia and we know a great deal more about the many forms it can take, although there's still not much we can do about it. And as a modern concern it's cropping up more and more in memoir (my moan about this one was nothing to do with the subject matter) and in fiction.   In fact the first novel in which I saw this addressed directly,  Marg...

For the first time, a major literary award - the Costa prize for short fiction - has gone to an independently published author, once a member of Authors Electric,   Avril Joy   for a story called Millie and Bird (download and read here)    I first met Avril a few years ago when she asked me to go into a women's prison and talk about Catherine Cookson.  I found it a very sobering experience and had nothing but admiration at the way Avril worked in this environment on a regular basis. Avril is a quiet, unassuming person with a profound knowledge of human nature acquired through years of working in the prison service as an education officer.  Add to that a love of language - Avril is a poet as well as a prose author - and you have a writer with a lot of  skills and considerable empathy.  Avril's first novels were written with the assistance of a 'Northern Promise ' writers' award from the Arts Council.  Her first novel, The Sweet Tr...