Authors Electric

Considerably to my surprise, I’ve just reached my ¾ century. How did I get here, I ask myself, and so fast? What about all that stuff that happened in between my arrival in Melksham towards the end of WW2 and now? Looking back at the in-between is like coming across a patchwork of bits and pieces, with holes in. A ragbag. Here are some verses from the early bits of it: First: I am learning to knit on my Great-gran’s knee In the cushions of her lap. Needles click, wool spools, ‘In, round, through, jump him off!’ she croons. With a twitch of her hand, a twitch of her knee, The stitch and I take flight. The stitch drops into the knitted wool, I fall into her downy warmth. And then:  Hop-picking time; we all turned out Bar those that were ailing and the working men. Smallest of all, I had a special bin; I picked the papery flowers into Great-grandad’s hat. Long years had shaped it to his head; it was brimful of him, Seasoned by weather, time and...

I don't think I've ever needed a break so desperately. Even at the last moment it seemed as if there were forces at work trying to stop me from escaping. I had just finished packing that morning when one of the kitchen lights suddenly began flickering on and off rather dramatically, even after I used the nearest switch to turn it off. Of course it could have been caused by an alien invasion, as in the scene from 'Close Encounters' where the little boy sees all his toys start to work on their own, but I suppose that was always an unlikely hypothesis. When I tried again with the other switch, at the far end of the kitchen, it gave me an electric shock. While still waiting for the taxi, I sent an online message to an electrician begging him to hurry round and do something about it, ran upstairs to tell the bed-ridden member of the family to drag himself downstairs and out the door if he smelt burning -- leaving the door open for the cat, naturally -- and a few moments l...

I have just finished reading, on my Kindle, Philip Pullman's latest book, "LA BELLE SAUVAGE", the back story to his award-winning Trilogy, "HIS DARK MATERIALS". It has been an enchanted reading journey to which, whenever real life got in the way, I kept wanting to return, so did. That's the spell that really good writing always casts. The next book on my current reading list will, I think, be very different - Kate Atkinson's "A GOD IN RUINS" (or perhaps not so very different as Philip Pullman, too, classifies Church and Religion as the enemy, but then I don't know the plot so it may not involve that at all). Moving from a passionate involvement with one book to another always feels slightly promiscuous, but then what is life without a bit of delicious promiscuity? And mentioning promiscuity, for those of you who are, like me, agented, have you ever approached another agent while still tied to your current one? Does the word get out? I...

I faced a difficult debate: do I stay in the confines of my writing cave for the day (and hopefully not get distracted by social media and the mountain of housework) or do I attend the first Killer Women festival of crime writing in London last weekend? As I hate to miss out, I chose to go. The founders of Killer Women (a group of crime writers mostly from London), Melanie McGrath and Louise Millar believed London didn't have its own crime writing festival and so created this one day event in Shoreditch Town Hall. As most of you will know, I'm still learning and soaking up the information I need to succeed as a writer, so I'm always happy to learn, and there were some elements of the programme that really interested me. Photo courtesy of reader Timea Cassera (left) How to pitch a novel, Building Suspense workshop, Inside the Killer's Head event, How to Self-publish a Bestseller, How to Solve a Murder and Making a Murderer workshop. These are just some of the...

Last month, XPO North sponsored the Indie Author Fair 2015, at Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London…which meant me heading south for 8 hours by an interesting east coast line Virgin train ride, that passed through Newcastle and some great undeveloped farming countryside I’d never seen before… It’s a bit surreal to arrive at a big station like King’s Cross in London after travelling backwards for 8 hours by train…it reminded me of Robert Pirsig’s description, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , of how ancient peoples used to encounter the future…as though proceeding up a river of time in a boat, with their back to the future as they rowed, facing the past, and only seeing the new territory of the encroaching future in small manageable segments appearing over their shoulders gradually… In his book, Pirsig presents this backwards approach to moving forward as the healthier way to travel…rather than the modern method of turning our back to the past, and facing ...