Authors Electric

A Late Beginner by Priscilla Napier Perhaps it’s an age thing (nooo, don’t all shout at once) but I find myself increasingly drawn to memoirs these days. This has led me to conclude that anyone enduring an eccentric childhood is duty-bound to write about it, if only to add to the sum of the bizarrest human knowledge and general mirth.  This view doesn’t allow for various other essentials eg the ability to write in a way that actually engages the reader…. But I suppose that is for a publisher to decide. In the case of memoirs I’ve read in the last year or so, I am very glad the publishers did decide, and even gladder for the perspicacity of Slightly Foxed Editions , in rescuing many out of print gems and giving them new life. A Late Beginner by Priscilla Napier, Jessica Mitford’s Hons and Rebels , Hermione Ranfurly's To War With Whitaker  (though to be fair that is a young person’s memoir, not a child’s) and now, Mango and Mimosa by Suzanne St Albans, whose childhood was ar...

L ast weekend I was asked to join a fellow author in an event at a local library. I’m a member of a group called Promoting Yorkshire Authors (PYA, https://www.promotingyorkshireauthors.com/ ), which is exactly what its name suggests: an organization of authors working together to promote their books. The ‘Yorkshire’ part covers both authors born in the English county of Yorkshire and those who currently live there. The event in question was to be two children’s authors talking about and reading from their books. And the theme was ‘A Yorkshire Childhood’. It has to be said I was a little uncertain whether this was really an event for me. I come under the latter category of membership of the PYA – I wasn’t born in what the locals call ‘God’s Own County’, although I recently realized I have now lived here something more than half my lifetime. (I was once told I could qualify for my Yorkshire passport after about fifteen years, but I’m still waiting…) But that ‘half a lifetime’ has bee...

Once again I have benefitted, quite unfairly, from my lack of organisational prowess, by having left the creation of my March post until the last minute and, because of this, being able to write about the sudden re-arrival of winter just when we thought we could all come out of hibernation. I've spent a few days trapped in the house, but that isn't exactly an enormous hardship, apart from the fact that the IT department at my workplace, in an uncharacteristic display of technical skill, have managed to make it possible for me to log into my work desktop remotely and even to update the main database from the comfort of my writing desk in the conservatory. So I haven't been able to spend all my time on writing-related tasks as I might have done otherwise (though I've worked on my Spanish course a little - more on that later). The cat makes his way cautiously down the garden, treading in his own paw-prints from last time to avoid getting his feet too wet. But wh...