Authors Electric

“On October 6 th , very suddenly, Beedings, Tunbridge Wells, Daphne, dearly loved younger daughter of Francis and Hazel Winstone-Scott. No letters please.” ( Sevenoaks Chronicle & Kentish Advertiser 12.10.1945). Daphne was my mother’s younger sister. She had gone up to her bedroom, that Saturday evening, and shot herself with their father’s WW1 revolver. It was 1945 and she was just fifteen.  I learn now, from checking old newspapers, (oh, the magic of the internet!) that Daphne had suffered periods of illness from the age of six and had spent eighteen months in bed when she was twelve.  I remember that one of my aunts had  told me long ago that Daphne had suffered from kidney disease and committed suicide because she realised she was going to die anyway.  In fact d ialysis was already entering the development stage by 1945 -- but Daphne didn't know that.   A  Daily Mirror  report dubbed her “the girl who would never grow up.” (8.10.1945)...

BITS, BITS, IT’S ALL IN BITS … by Sheridan Winn Here’s the thing. I have a modest body of work – six children’s fantasy titles representing around 325,000 words and several years of my life. Five of these titles have sold over 200,000 hardbacks in Germany, with paperbacks and e-books now following. Fischer Schatzinsel, I love you. These five titles were first published in the UK (thank you, Piccadilly Press) and sales have been satisfactory. I get a lot of readers borrow my books from the libraries and a decent annual fee from Public Lending Right. When the Sprite Sister series launched in 2008, the jackets looked like this:- But this story, The Circle of Power, and the first in the series, has just gone out of print in the UK. Naturally I have asked Piccadilly for the rights back. As The Circle of Power disappeared off the shelves this Spring, I published the sixth title, The Boy With Hawk-like Eyes, as a print-on-demand paperback and as an e-...