Authors Electric

  When would no blog have been better than a cobbled-together effort? You may be about to find out… Spring is about to be sprung, so here’s a hare prose poem:    Hare THE FIELD SPARKLES WITH LATE FROST. In the shadow of the hedge, the leveret crouches low, as brown as the earth that cradles her. Sharp eyes watch for her, sharp ears listen for her, sharp noses twitch to sniff her out. She knows nothing of teeth and talons, nothing of snares and guns and cutting blades. She knows only to be still in her shallow scoop. AS THE FIRST STARS RISE, there is a low thrumming on the air; her mother’s call. She is washed to rid her of the scent that could betray her, filled with warm sweet milk, left alone to the night and stillness once again.   MAY BLOSSOM PERFUMES THE HEDGEROW. Her mother’s call does not come. When the moon rises, hunger nips her. She cleans her fur, creeps from the shadow of the hedge into the field.   She crops the soft, low grass shoots. ...

Love her or loathe her, Ms James certainly pushes buttons, doesn’t she? The recent #AskELJames Twitter Q&A had some interesting questions posed to the author, my favourite being from @skepticosaurus Will you be rewriting the book from Stephenie Meyer's point of view next time? Or this one . One wonders whether her publishers were expecting this kind of reaction or whether they expected her legions of fans to produce a flash-mob of adoration and publicity. I’m sure there were a lot of people praising the woman, but you never hear about all the nice stuff, do you? That doesn’t make news. But #AskELJames does - even on ITV ! Here's the full hashtag thread. So what is it about certain people – certain authors – that polarises opinion? EL James, JK Rowling, even Stephenie Meyer? They don’t write literary fiction, no, but neither do a lot of other authors and it doesn’t matter. We laugh, criticise and castigate. Are we jealous of their success or money? Maybe some ...

Now I’m not a huge fan of the current trend in paranormal fantasy/romance/whatever. Yes, I admit I read Twilight (and, yes, I enjoyed it), but I have no desire to delve into the ocean of teenage mortal-meets-demon angst. I'm the mother of a teenager and get enough of it at home, thanks... But I do love faeries. The whole mythos is infinitely more complex than that of vampires, demons and werewolves and seems securely rooted in Celtic legend. And every book I read stays more-or-less true to the basic premise, while maybe adding a new twist. And as those of you who know me well will also know - I've always been obsessed by the idea of other worlds, parallel universes, realities that sit alongside our own and touch on occasion. But why are all my favourite tales of Faerie set in America? Celtic mythology has Irish and Welsh roots, surely? Is the American take on it a result of the mass Irish immigration into America over the years? Maybe they took their tales of home wi...

Last month as part of the annual Chester Literature Festival I took part in a debate about Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Now, anyone who knows my writing will know that I’m not a huge Twilight fan. I’m quite happy for people to read what they want, and for writers to do new things with established genres - so it’s not the sparkly vampires that bother me so much (although I do personally think they’re rubbish!) It’s the fact that, since Twilight’s astronomic rise in popularity, the misunderstood heartthrob vampire now seems to be the only type being written - and subsequently, a lot of horror markets have placed a blanket ban on submissions of vampire stories, which is a shame for writers like me who like vampires (and werewolves, and zombies, and other newly ‘unfashionable’ creatures!) This was actually the entire reason that me and L.C. Hu produced our anthology ‘ Re-Vamp! ’ in 2011, to counteract all the mopey teenage monsters - but I’m digressing. The thing is, in this debate, I wa...

I’ve just finished reading Twilight and its sequels New Moon and Eclipse . For the first time. If you haven’t heard of Twilight , you’re probably that person who got left behind on Mars when the tour bus left. You’d have to have been on another planet to miss the uprising of the vampires in fiction, television, film and just about every other media outlet. Vampires aren’t new – Bram Stoker created Dracula (it’s free on kindle) and even then it’s alleged that his vampire was based on Eastern European mythology – don’t shoot me: I’ve done no research for this blog post. But Dracula was dark, the spin-off films were dark (think all the old Christopher Lee films and the more modern Van Helsing ) and this breed of vampire is a dangerous beast. Then came Stephen King with Salems Lot (James Mason has the sexiest voice in the film version), Anne Rice and her Interview With The Vampire (the film version lost credibility for me - Tom Cruise? Really?) and the occasional other vampire...