Authors Electric

Rather overlooked in the frantic rush to prepare for Christmas, the Winter Solstice is nevertheless a significant day for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere. For this is the longest night of the year, which might sound a bit dark and gloomy, but means that from now on the days will lengthen and the nights shorten. So rejoice - because the light is returning! Slowly and surely, like a new book being created word by word, one day you'll wake up and find it's spring again. For authors, I think this is the perfect time of year to pause and reflect, to hibernate and recover our creative strength for the new year ahead. Like the spring bulbs buried underground and preparing to thrust their green shoots through the earth, much creative work happens out of sight. New projects can grow from last year's bulbs, and - if we are patient and give them enough time - our ideas will soon ripen and bloom for others to enjoy. Meanwhile, here are a few of my favourite sols...

Is there a reason why I love old oak furniture?  A few years ago, one of my relatives, a Reiki practitioner, came to me with a slightly odd request. She was doing a course in ‘past life regression’ (yes – such things are available) and she needed a case study. How would I feel about being her guinea pig? Other people had said they would be too scared or just didn’t believe in it, but I jumped at the chance. Which is how I found myself in a warm room, all wrapped up in a blanket, listening to her soothing tones as she took me through a set of preliminary relaxation exercises. This kind of session involves mild hypnosis, so I know it wouldn’t be for everyone. It also, I suppose, involves a willing suspension of disbelief – something writers find remarkably easy. At no point did I ever feel out of control or even particularly sleepy, although I certainly felt relaxed – with occasional lurches into inexplicable discomfort best described as a sense of falling, a momentary dizzi...

'HEAD AND TALES' by Susan Price: cover by Andrew Price           The first story in my new e-book collection of folk-legends, HEAD AND TALES, is ‘ The Boy and The Blacksmith’ .           In short, the story is of a blacksmith challenged to a trial of skill by the King’s goldsmith.  On his way to the trial, the blacksmith meets ‘a raggedy navvy-boy’, who tags along with him.           Before the king and court, the blacksmith makes mundane horse-shoes, a scythe blade and a ploughshare – which will, he claims, ‘feed people’.  The navvy-boy visits the goldsmith’s shop and reports that the goldsmith is making wondrous things – a living apple-tree, a living fish, a corn-wreath, all of gold.           With the boy’s help, the blacksmith creates an iron deer, which kills the gold tree; an iron o...