Authors Electric

I started out as a radio writer, doing plays for Afternoon Theatre and a short series called Just Before Midnight , one of which I re-wrote for the stage. I also penned short stories for both radio and magazines. Writers sometimes feel that things have got a bit stale, so I did an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa, which was terrific fun. After that I became a poet for a bit. The need to make some money (and on the suggestion of my agent) I started writing rather more racy stuff under a pseudonym, initially in short story anthologies and later in novels for – shall we say – the more adventurous female reader. Eventually I was told there was too much plot in my stories, and not enough of the other, so I did a complete about-turn to children’s books, which have been my most successful venture. I’ve also done a couple of straight adult novels. This means that I have mixed in many different writing worlds, and they’re not the same by any means. They do, of course, change over the ye...

It’s out! My latest poetry collection ALL THAT LIVES , CSI:Poetry of sex, death and pathology, is now on Kindle as an indie, only about £2, as well as in paperback from Red Squirrel Press. So if you fancy dipping a toe into poetry, check out the book, though strangely there is no Amazon category for ‘science poetry about the dying brain, together with funny erotic poetry about post-divorce dating’. Yes there’s dementia and the science of dying, but also humour and joy (much more of that, later!). It follows years of research working closely with neuroscientists, anatomists and pathologists, in various fascinating Writer in Residence posts. (US link here .) I’ve also put my much-acclaimed related poetry installation SLICING THE BRAIN, an AV animated text film exhibited across Europe, onto youtube, in particular so that readers of the book can see the innovative dwindling sequence THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING BRAIN in action. See it here , but in full screen and highest re...

Phenomena like the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy are a constant fascination to me. What they seem to show is that no one has any idea at all why some books take off and some don’t. Quality doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it at all. Crap novels become best sellers, wonderful novels become remainders. The big publishers throw money at some of their titles, and they still bomb. Word of mouth is meant to be king, yet everyone I know who has read Fifty Shades etc (or claims to have done so) is lukewarm. How many sold? Twenty million? Thus I now crave your indulgence as friends, real and virtual, to name two books by two authors you won’t have heard of, and give you tasters of their work. This is done, naturally, with their full permission, and I have absolutely no commercial interest in either of them. One is a friend called Margaret, the other a friend called John. John’s book is a police procedural called No Place for Dinosaurs, and the other a weird and wonderful shor...