Authors Electric

(I hope it's OK to sneak in an invitation. On July 28th I will be at Blackwell's in Oxford as part of a panel called "Rising Literary Stars" with Naomi Wood [The Godless Boys], Lee Rourke [The Canal], and Stuart Evers [Ten Stories About Smoking]. It would be lovely to say hello in person!) My wife keeps rats. Well, I absolutely adore them but they live in her study to keep them out of harm’s way of our 5 cats. When we were first looking around and doing our research, we went into a pet shop and there was a label on the massive rat cage saying “we like to live in groups.” I was sitting babysitting our two boys this morning whilst my wife cleaned out their cage, and thinking how this site is feeling more and more like a homely community, and how I have a rather long (as I’ll explain but not at length, don’t worry) history of writers’ groups , and how the very most exciting work seems to come from movements not individuals locked away in their turrets – Bloomsbury, The C...

(That's me at the original launch. I find the key to readings is the 45 degree angle) No, really. We’re all writers on this site, so we’re pretty used to sitting tapping and scratching till the words come out. But as we’re doing introductions this month, I thought I’d say something about what I love most in this storytelling business. Talking. Reading to a live audience. I say it a lot but as a writer you really can’t beat looking into an audience’s eyes and listening to their laughter and gasps as you lead them through the labyrinth of emotions that is a story. I never really knew I’d love doing readings and shows. I’ve always been a bit of an exhibitionist. There was that time when we’d just got off the plane in Athens and I walked over the other side of the square so I’d be in the sight-line of a local news crew. And there was the phase when I’d go on any game show that would have me – Countdown, 15-1, Mastermind (Hannibal Lecter novels), Weakest Link, er, Brainteaser and pon...