Authors Electric

 An atlas was once considered an essential reference book for anyone’s bookcase. Remember that beautiful scene in the Ang Lee’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility where young Margaret Dashwood sits under the table, perusing an oversized atlas, planning her adventures? Later it is given to as a gift to her by the very handsome Edward Ferrers played Hugh Grant. While searching for an apt literary quote, I discovered that scene was never actually written by Miss Austen, but added to the film to flesh out Edward’s character. Nevertheless, I think my premise still stands, that once upon a time a world atlas was an important tome in almost every household. Along with a family Bible, dictionary and perhaps the complete works of Shakespeare. Nowadays they become obsolete almost as quickly as they are printed. Few of us rely on road atlases in our cars any more as they have been superseded by satnavs and Goggle maps, much less fiddly to use en route , potentially causing less argum...

I had just read Death and the Penguin , a surreal mystery novel by Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov , when Russian despot Vladimir Putin stepped up his Big Lie that Ukraine doesn't exist as a country or culture outside of Mother Russia.  He might as well have said that Ireland doesn't exist because the Emerald Isle spent so much of its history under British rule. No surprise here: Lies are the mother's milk of tyrants, actual and would-be. This long-of-tooth American, for example, has oft lowered a Quixotic lance at waves self-serving, authoritarian lies washing over so-called land of the free incessantly as polluted tides. Meanwhile, inconvenient truths are gagged and spirited away. The Russian bombing of Mariupol differs little in its mass-murdering savagery from those of  Guernica, Rotterdam, London, Rotterdam, Dresden, Hiorshima, or more recently, Aleppo.  George Orwell's rule holds true: "The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate how ...

 Sometimes writing fiction feels pointless. Sometimes what is going on in real life eclipses fiction, so that making things up can feel like the most cowardly kind of escapism, a failure to engage with reality.  In Covid lockdown, writing poetry about the pandemic made sense because, Downing St apart, we were all in it together.  Not all of us suffered, but we all feared suffering and for a time, when it seemed that the virus was as likely to affect all of us equally, that seemed to legitimise writing about it. It was everyone's story even for those of us not on the front line or in hospital. I felt entitled, obliged even to write about it.     The war in Ukraine feels different. I don't know where the line lies between imaginative empathy and exploitation.  This is not my suffering and dipping my metaphorical pen in someone else's blood feels inappropriate. Let those who are living it, write it, record it, rework it into art or poetry or propaganda as...

    Writers can be shy retiring creatures, preferring their stories to remain quietly on the page. However, there comes a time when more is required, and hiding behind the printed word is no longer an option. If you're doing well you may be paid to do it. You may have an audience of hundreds, or an audience of three. Or it may be that self-promotion means you have to do it for free, with few obvious sales. Remember, though, that the person who listened avidly, read the whole of the first chapter on the sales stand and bought nothing may remember it in the future, when a present is needed, or a recommendation, or holiday reading is on the agenda. What's required can differ wildly. There are straightforward readings from books, when merely being audible can be enough – as long as there’s a mic, and you remember you’re meant to speak into it. It depends what you write, though. If there's a lot of dialogue you may have to manage different accents, as well as threatening char...

Click on Tomorrow’sWorld . And when you do you may well be using a home computer, something that was first featured on a programme by the same name that ran from 1965 to 2003 on BBC TV. At its height it attracted ten million viewers each week, and was a platform for scientific and technological innovations. As it was broadcast live, there were quite few spectacular failures on screen. Some inventions sank without trace, such as the washing line that sang when it rained, whilst others such as the breathalyser and the ATM became part of our everyday life. If you like setting stories in the near the future, as I sometimes do, it’s important to know what’s hot and what’s not. I came across Click by accident, and now it’s an integral part of my week although I usually watch the short version in bed on a Sunday morning. The full version is available on iPlayer. It’s a pleasantly upbeat programme, which neither talks down to you nor blinds you with science. The best way to describe it is ...

The Kids' Lit Quiz   is an annual literature competition for children aged 10 to 13. It puts bookworms at the heart of things and lets them compete for fantastic prizes. The quiz has heats in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, USA, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Australia; winning teams qualify for national and world finals. The Kids Lit Quiz is not for profit and run entirely by volunteers. International sponsors include Serco, Softlink, Scholastic and Oxford University Press. I’ve been in the authors’ team a couple of times – it’s a for-fun addition to the teams taking part in the regional finals. In 2013 there were about 26 teams, and the questions were grouped into categories such as Owls, the Supernatural – and Mythical Beasts. I felt really honoured that one of the questions was about a character in The Divide . The authors’ team acquitted themselves well (as surely they ought, having the benefit of many more years’ reading, and an example to ...

     Bob Newman ( Old Possums’ Book of Practical Pigs)  wrote a  delightfully surreal novel, with nods to Garcia Marquez and Conan Doyle. The characters ranged from a glyptodon to a javelin thrower from an obscure Amazonian tribe, and the story had its denouement at the 2012 Olympics. Unfortunately, he finished it too late to have a hope of publishing it in time. There are ways round it – a solution of sorts is the tag-line “…this book tells the full story behind the javelin final at the London Olympics – not as it was, but as it should have been…” But it would have been much better to get the forward planning right!             Thinking ahead can be very important. Tying in publication to something you know is on the horizon can be a good move. Major anniversaries are excellent inspirations for non-fiction, and a quick search on the web can be very fruitful. However, it’s the monthly short st...