Authors Electric

These past few days on Social Media I've seen a lot of posts of paperback books that have been recently purchased, and then debates on the way that we enjoy books. Once upon a time, I would have scoffed at anyone who didn't read a physical book. How could they enjoy the experience properly on a screen, surely the smell and feel of a book are what made it so special? Then I discovered the Kindle app on my iPhone. I'd toyed with iBooks and felt it was okay at a push, but wasn't the same. For some reason I fell in love with Kindle, so much so I went out and bought my first Kindle device. I have never looked back. Now I admit that a small part of my love for Kindle over paperback could be due to the ageing process. My eyesight has deteriorated drastically over the past three years, so much so that I do need to increase the font size from standard on my Kindle. That said I wear my glasses so I don't have to increase it to a point where I'm forever turning the p...

Last year I joined a delightfully old-fashioned debating society. New members are voted in by the black ball/white ball system, where the appropriate ball is put in a box, and the results counted (origin of the term to blackball someone). Speeches are strictly limited in time, and no one is allowed to speak more than once other than the proposer and opposer, and no one is allowed to interrupt. In these days of unbridled rudeness on programmes such as Question Time, when the whole panel may be clamouring to get their point across, this is refreshingly civilised. This term we have a topic that may be of interest to those reading this – This House believes that the best children’s books have been written in the last fifty years. I would be very interested to have some replies here, to see what other people think. Of course, in true debating style, first we have to establish what is meant by best , by child , by written and then, in these electronic times, what is meant by book . ...

Over the last two years I've spent hundreds of hours scanning my paternal grandfather's extensive photography collection. My aunts and father have shared with memories they had forgotten, jarred loose from some mind crevice after seeing an old photograph. Gathering family stories together is about more than names and dates. Much more, in fact. For me the work also carries with it certain spiritual dimension. Through discussions with living family members combined with my own memories, I am able to extend the lives of my relatives beyond the grave. All of us called to do this work are a kind of ghost whisperer, conjuring our dearly departed ones from the edges of our minds and bringing them to life again through the beauty of the internet. My great grandmother, Martha "Petee" Lapin, was born in Rush Center, Kansas in 1883. She was married at 16 and buried a baby daughter within a year. ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Of her remaining three children, one boy was dead at 3 and a se...

In 2006, I started writing seriously again (‘seriously’ in the sense of aiming for some sort of goal; ‘again’ in the sense that I used to write in my teens and early 20s, but was sidetracked by that annoying thing called ‘life’). Little did I know at the time that I was embarking on an example of what was then a newly coined genre of fiction. Or in fact, not yet quite coined, as I discovered this week. That newish genre is ‘climate fiction’, or ‘cli-fi’ for short – an abbreviation that is rather apt as often cli-fi appears as a theme within science fiction, although it can be found within many other genres. The term was apparently coined in 2007 by journalist Dan Bloom, although it didn’t take off in the literary mainstream until 2013. Climate change was a theme within fiction for many years before either date (for example, Jules Verne’s  The Purchase of the North Pole (1889) and Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven (1971) – it was just that by 2013 it was recognized as...

  Tove Jansson is the well-known author of the Moomin books, although she also wrote stories for adults.   Commendable as these stories are I have to admit it’s the Moomins I return to, over and over.   Not only are they wonderful stories, populated by a mix of weird and wondrous characters, but Jansson’s atmospheric black and white line illustrations also add an extra dimension.      Jansson’s characters may be small creatures who don’t exist in the real world but their attributes are all too human. They are certainly not one-dimensional characters – and some are really quite odd and eccentric. There’s the lonely Groke who turns everything around her to ice, the pompous and bossy Hemulen, the fiercely independent Snufkin, the courageous and reckless Little My, the ever-curious Moomin, the shy and tremulous Sniff, and then there’s the ever present earth-mother Moominmamma, always available to comfort those in distress. But even the soothing Moominmama...

The year in 365 objects January 2018: Oppressed by bulging wardrobes, drawers that refused to shut and surfaces on which piles of papers teetered precariously, I resolved that I would begin a life laundry− a clear out of all superfluous objects.  I had watched the programmes where chronic hoarders were helped to rid themselves of their stuff by professional de-clutterers; I’d read the articles that told you that unless an object filled you with delight then it had no place in your life. Neither, apparently, did garments that had not been worn for over a year. All these things should be moved on, rehomed to clear your house and so give you space that would work on both a physical and psychological level. On one level, all this resonated with me. I knew I had too much stuff. The trouble was I did not have the mental, or emotional energy for the sort of clear out recommended by the professionals. Faced by the prospect of all my clothes being laid out for me to de...

Abandon the shoes that had brought you here right at water’s edge This line comes from a magnificent poem called  Finisterre . It was written by David Whyte , a poet, speaker, and healer of souls. I met him not long after I had abandoned my own shoes. Finisterre  is about pilgrimage: the ancient road to Santiago de Compostelo  and the village that lies beyond, perched at the end of the world. It’s a poem about journeys, impossibilities and redemption. You, too, can come to the end of the earth and walk on water. on the road All writers start out on the same road. For some, the writing alone is enough. Writing is good. It cleans the blood and opens the pores. You can feel more when you write. For years, I wrote and then I stopped. I felt too much. The moth emerges from its chrysalis to become a butterfly; I only wanted to crawl back inside and hide. It’s easy to do. You fill your calendar with things to do, right away, more and more an...