Authors Electric

A rather awkward question came up over Christmas lunch this year, which nobody in our family could answer: "What happens to all the face masks and test kits after use?" I expect you know the ones I'm talking about, since no doubt you've had similar conversations over the festive break. In our family, Dad alone uses four lateral flow kits every week since he's required to take one every time he visits Mum in her nursing home. I was surprised he took so many, as I always thought you had to pay for them and Dad is of the 'make do and mend' generation, but apparently these amazingly elaborate and well-packaged kits are totally free, and you just go and ask for one at a chemist if you need it... so who actually is paying for them all, I wonder? Brother uses fewer kits, but says he takes a voluntary test before visiting people or going to a party, since apparently that's the socially acceptable thing to do these days... always assuming you have any social li...

 'Tis the season of witches and wizards, spells and pumpkins... hopefully, everyone will be able to get out at Halloween to enjoy some trick-and-treating this year, too! The trees are turning gold, and the world does seem just a little bit more magical at this time of year. There might be a good reason for that enchanted feeling. Did you know that trees can communicate underground via their roots, and will even send help if one of their number needs nourishment or is threatened? This is known as the Wood Wide Web  and was the concept behind my 2000 novel SPELLFALL, where the trees in my parallel world of Earthaven are gigantic soultrees that bear magical fruit and seeds. Spellfall (first US edition) Their root system acts rather like the London Underground, and it's possible to travel around it in living capsules, operated by the trees themselves, known as 'organazoomers'. The soultrees and the Spell Lords who look after them can also use this root system to communicate...

I came across this book in my local charity shop last week, with a title I could not resist - Publish or Die. The bargain price of 20p is well within my current book-buying budget, so I picked it up, took it home and read it over second breakfast. It turned out to be a teen title written by Alan Durant and published on Scholastic's Point Crime list in the 1990's, a few years before my first book was published. Scholastic did several of these lists as I remember... Point Horror, Point Fantasy, etc... bringing together well-respected YA authors to create what seems to have been a successful publisher-led brand. Publish or Die  is set in the offices of a small publishing house, where the heroine Calico has just started as an editorial assistant - for which read coffee-maker, slush pile reader, photocopier of manuscripts, and general gofer. Still starry-eyed with her love of books, she walks straight into a cut-throat office dispute between two of the senior editors, who di...