Authors Electric

The Magic Pudding  by Norman Lindsay What does the word ‘magic’ in a book title conjure up for you?  Not a silly question. There’s method in my magicness. Because before I read one of my favourite books as a child, I’d have assumed a story with that word in the title would be about fairies, or wizards, or mysterious lands where animals can talk and rivers run silver… a benign, happy kind of magic in other words. Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree , for instance, or Aladdin's magic lamp in A Thousand and One Nights , or Alison Uttley’s Magic in my Pocket .  Then my uncle returned from Australia with a copy for me of  The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay.  Nice title, thought I, if a bit predictable. Obviously, a version of the Brothers' Grimm Magic Porridge Pot that miraculously feeds the impoverished family who owns it, without ever running out. (As long as they obey the rules that is. There has to be a catch somewhere.) All about generosity, in other words, from...

The other day, looking down from an upstairs window at my North London street, I noticed a lush green tree with huge scarlet blossoms - how could I possibly have not seen it before, and whatever was it? And right now, in my garden, there's a shimmering turquoise veil over part of my fence, almost iridescent. A stage magician pulls a flock of doves out of a top hat, and they fly away - it has to be magic, but we know it isn't. We want it to be magic, though, and once there's an explanation, what we've seen is somehow spoilt, however clever. We feel cheated. My exotic tree in which I totally believed for a few moments was an ordinary London plane seen against a scarlet car, scarlet and green being complementary colours, the combination of which produced the dazzling 'blossoms'. The shimmering veil on my fence was old, green netting catching the sunlight against deep shadow. A few years ago, someone wrote a book about the proliferation of magical 'healers...

I have met a lot of writers. Like real, published-by-big-houses, award-winning, best-selling novelists. Writers you know, writers that your kids have tests on, and writers that your kids read to avoid studying for tests on the writers your kids have tests on. Writers with Wikipedia pages I once had dinner with Joseph Heller because I told him at a signing that I was writing my Master's thesis on his work. I had to explain to Kurt Vonnegut at the same dinner that no, it wasn't because  Slaughterhouse-Five wasn't good enough for me. I didn't have a camera, so this picture of them with their wives (from an entirely unrelated event) will have to suffice. I used to play D&D with a World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Award winner. I correspond regularly with another Bram Stoker Award winner. I've eaten several lunches with T.E.D. Klein . I used to work with the guy who wrote the Wishbone books . I am also good friends with both Kelley Wilde and our own Reb MacR...

A very happy Christmas Day to a ll our re aders! And a Prosperous New Year to come!  Here's what I've been working on, in the run-up to Christmas... This is what I've been slaving over a graphics programme to produce. A new cover for Ghost Song.           The blurb on the back reads: At white midnight, in the endless midsummer of the far North, Kuzma the bear-shaman demands a new-born baby boy from his father, the slave and hunter, Malyuta.      Steadfastly, throughout the long summer night, Malyuta refuses.      The powerful shaman, thwarted, leaves at last.      Malyuta names his adored son 'Ambrosi' or 'Immortal.' But, as Ambrosi grows, the villagers begin to fear him.      The bear-shaman still walks in Ambrosi's dreams and still calls him...            The old cover looked like this:-        ...

To my great shame, and my almost certain loss, I have never read Thomas Hardy, but yesterday, feeling low, I took myself off to see "FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD" at the Phoenix cinema in East Finchley. This proved to be one of the most visually stunning films I've ever seen, its images of the English landscape like a Nineteenth Century Book of Hours. The actual plot is extraordinary, with its peak moment coming about three-quarters of the way through (well that's my analysis, but others may differ). I have often meant to draw a plot graph of books that impress me, as I'm sure many of you have. The (sadly, late) Ruth Rendell orchestrated plot lines like a symphony. I often likened her novels to music, and even painting - Paul Klee 'taking a line for a walk' springs to mind. Very recently, I've taken on a brief for fifty word stories aimed at four/five year olds -  the length of a medium-sized email (or, in musical terms, a VERY short exercise piece for...

Last New Year I was in Sydney - apocalyptic fireworks! HAPPY NEW YEAR! This post should go live at midnight, some time after which my boyfriend and I will be heading back from our friends’ house party. When we arrive home we shall deploy the motley collection of objects I shall take with us or previously place near the front door step: a box of matches/lighter, a bottle of drink (usually whisky but could be wine or juice), some salt, a piece of wood/coal, and bread/something edible. We will make sure he goes into the house first, for he will be the 'first foot' through the door in 2015, carrying these objects representing fire, fuel, food and drink, with the hope that the whole year to come will see us well supplied with these essentials and therefore Good Luck. First-footing Kit - salt, coal, whisky and bread, aka the basics. When I was a bairn in the north east of England, New Year’s Eve was celebrated as much as it is in Scotland under the name of Hogmanay, t...

How do we define magic? The dictionary isn’t much help: the supposed art of influencing course of events by occult control of nature or of spirits…inexplicable or remarkable influence producing surprising results (I like that one). Is it too fanciful to think that it applies to the creative process? Over and above the work – research, editing, re-writing, re-re-writing, sweat, blood, toil and tears, there seems to be something inexplicable, sometimes. Characters do something you didn’t plan or expect, or your careful plotting suddenly lurches into something else. Is this universal among writers, though? JK Rowling seems to plan her plots and people down to the last degree, she says, so are only some of us inflicted by inexplicable or remarkable influences? I probably believed in fairies for much too long – or at least, in the possibility of fairies. I remember a meadow of wildflowers and long grass and butterflies where I almost thought I saw something. How old was I? T...

So – December 2012. Is the world going to end in a few weeks? Is it worth buying any Christmas presents, or will the shops be full of Christmas Eve shoppers grabbing last minute gifts when they realise that really they don’t have a valid excuse after all? I love a good conspiracy theory. From Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code , I’ve been lapping them all up. It may not be the best-written book in the world, but I can’t say I noticed as the plot fascinated me. I love to go off and actually look at pictures of The Last Supper and see if I agree with Brown’s interpretations. For me, the key to a good story of this type is the plausibility of the plot. I’m willing to believe, I want to go with the author; it doesn’t take much to hook me in, but get it wrong – tell me something I know for a fact cannot be true –   and you’ve lost me forever. Take vampires for instance. I can suspend disbelief enough to acknowledge their existence in fiction – but having children? Nope, that’s crossed...

BITS, BITS, IT’S ALL IN BITS … by Sheridan Winn Here’s the thing. I have a modest body of work – six children’s fantasy titles representing around 325,000 words and several years of my life. Five of these titles have sold over 200,000 hardbacks in Germany, with paperbacks and e-books now following. Fischer Schatzinsel, I love you. These five titles were first published in the UK (thank you, Piccadilly Press) and sales have been satisfactory. I get a lot of readers borrow my books from the libraries and a decent annual fee from Public Lending Right. When the Sprite Sister series launched in 2008, the jackets looked like this:- But this story, The Circle of Power, and the first in the series, has just gone out of print in the UK. Naturally I have asked Piccadilly for the rights back. As The Circle of Power disappeared off the shelves this Spring, I published the sixth title, The Boy With Hawk-like Eyes, as a print-on-demand paperback and as an e-...