Authors Electric

Exquisite tenderness: Gainsborough's portrait of his daughters Two weeks ago I went to the Gainsborough’s Family Album exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, and if you have nothing to do in the next 2 days I urge you to catch it before it closes. (A fat lot of use giving you so little notice, I know. Sorry.)  If your only image of this marvellous 18th century painter is as a highly-skilled, flattering portraitist of wealthy aristocrats, you’ll be bowled over – as I was – by the exquisite tenderness, emotional depth and freshness he achieved in portrait after portrait of his two daughters, captured together at various stages of their lives. His love and fatherly protectiveness burst out of these paintings, making them some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking portraits ever painted. Gainsborough's cousin, the Reverend Henry Burroughs: This portrait may have been done 'to advertise the artist's skills  to potential patrons in his cousin...

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...

The Scattered Authors Society – yes, the other SAS  – recently had a get-together at Folly Farm in Somerset. This is a group of mainly traditionally-published children’s writers, and although this is obviously not open to all, beginners can get similar benefits from joining a creative writing class. Writers frequently live very isolated lives, beavering away at home on their computers and, at this time of year, rarely acknowledging the light of day unless they need to do some shopping. This was the fifth get-together I’ve attended since 2004, and each one has been thoroughly worthwhile, from the topics we’ve tackled to making new friends. Mixing with other writers is a delight, and the opportunity to do so in such lovely surroundings is fantastic. Friends and relatives, however well-meaning, simply don’t understand the frustrations, moments of euphoria and plain hard grind of an author’s life. Sharing this with others in the same position is brilliant. Of course, it’s not all...