Authors Electric

There’s a saying isn’t there – about   knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing . But just how valuable is that nothing? I ran a writing science fiction workshop last week on a very wet and windy Saturday in North East Manchester. Now I don't write a lot of SF (far more crime these days), but given that a lot of the event was Dr Who -themed, with people in costumes, mask-making and a few props around, I suspect they booked me because of the Daemons DVD and anthology I was involved with. When I arrived, I was told that the workshop was fully booked and that the places had gone quickly. I was shown to a nice little room on a quiet corridor, I set up the tables, laid out some free books I’d acquired and waited for my delegates to arrive. A very nice chap turned up. An ex-EastEnders script-writer (yes, imposter syndrome started to kick in at this point), closely followed by another writer.  And nothing. We had a chat, liaised with the staff –...

It is that time of year when some of us would much prefer to hibernate. Once new year celebrations are over (in the UK at least) there are two months of cold and damp to look forward to – and I am a summer girl.   Events such as signings are invariably a lot more fun than my winter-brain tells me they will be, and something writers do, even in deepest, darkest winter. Especially when good friends are relying on you to be there.   This was the case for the recent signing that I attended to promote The Daemons of Devil’s End. It was the last event in the signing tour to promote both the   The Daemons of Devil’s End DVD , starring Damaris Hayman, made by   Reel Time Pictures, and the accompanying anthologies The Daemons of Devil’s End , and/or   Olive Hawthorne and the Daemons of Devil’s End , both from Telos Pres s. Yes, two editions of the same book ( a nother story in its own right). It was touch and go whether I would make it  a...

This is Sheffield on a cold but sunny Saturday in November. Galaxy 4 is a shop specialising in Dr Who merchandise, and those people are queuing to buy a DVD and/or books. I am sitting just inside the window behind a table with a black cloth and a name placard with a pen and ready to sign purchases! Yes, those people are queuing to see me! Well, OK - they are more likely to be queuing to meet Damaris Hayman , tv actress who starred in the early 1970s Dr Who story The Daemons . She's also just starred in White Witch of Devil's End - a follow-on from the original story. Part monologue, part drama, this is a sequence of six short episodes where Olive Hawthorne talks about her life as protector of Devil's End. White Witch launched in November - and I wrote one of the episodes. So I now have my first IMDb credit as a scriptwriter and I get to sign DVD sleeves alongside Damaris and some of the other writers. Plus there is the book too - a novelisation and expansion of ...