Authors Electric

Wikipedia  I was talking to an old friend of mine recently about something I’d read; children who have been lied to assume that everyone lies, and therefore have no compunction about doing it themselves. But if you delve into this a little more deeply, it becomes very interesting and relevant to what we write for children. Both about lying, and telling the truth. My children found the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons much funnier than I did. Calvin is a six-year-old boy and Hobbes is his stuffed toy tiger, whom he addresses as a sentient being although all the other characters treat him as a toy. Calvin has a vivid imagination, and comes out with some great one-liners such as : “Reality continues to ruin my life.” But it’s the stories his father tells him that made the impact on me. He makes up ludicrous explanations to some of Calvin's awkward questions such as where do babies come from: “You can buy assembly kits at Sears and K Mart.” Or how the load limit for bridges is calcul...

Something remarkable happened on June 30, 2023. A first review came in for a novel I'd launched on Kindle a year before--then orphaned: no ads and no online hustling. I'd moved from Seattle to Tucson, you see, and found myself under siege on all fronts: seeking work, settling in, attending rehab for my injured knee, and working on a second book of Latin translations. As a matter of fact, Latin translations had obsessed me already for a couple of years and this new book, diabolically tricky, had come close to being the only thought in my fool head. So the novel, the fourth in my Seattle BOP mystery series, sat as an orphan in a deep digital corner. Unread and unloved. And, meanwhile, I worked obsessively on a second Latin project that maybe no one would read. After all, I'm not an established Latin expert or even a proper academic. A handful of Facebook friends read the first little book, on Propertius, and loved it. Two teachers I'd sent copies were enthusiastic and wan...

  This month I will finishing “The Ice Angel” the last book in my series “The Adventures of Letty Parker.” Aimed at readers between 8-12 and set in an alternative Victorian England, the stories were originally intended to be a trilogy. As time went by and I became more and more absorbed in the world I had created , Letty and her Associates ended up having so many cases to solve and missing persons to find that what should have been three books became six. I have, however, finally come to the end. Right from the very start I had decided that there was a point at which I was going to stop and that was when Letty got to the age when she would fall in love. I didn’t want to write romance, but I knew that my readers would want to know what happened on an emotional level to Letty and her friends in their future and as the books went on I seeded enough hints as to who would eventually end up with who without specifically saying so. In “The Ice Angel” some narrative threads come to an ...

  We pulled into the Starbucks at the bottom of the hill so that I could get some coffee. Then we started up the hill to Idyllwild, California, and she pulled the blanket over her head. I didn't have the radio on, because she prefers not to hear it, and I took it slow, and, as usual, there wasn't much traffic. The scenery is amazing, but she forbade me from saying, "Oh my god you have to see this." And you do have to see it. The landscape is slowly rising hills right up in your face, so close you can park, and hop out, and touch them. This closeness makes them look big. And they are bolder-studded, so they put me in mind of the Houses of the Holy cover. I think that's the cover they put me in mind of anyway. And, just five minutes or so in, you take one of the switchback turns, and there is the valley you just left, terrifyingly far below you already, and there is no guardrail, nope. Go ahead and drive the hell over if you've had enough, Idyllwild and the mou...

Golden Globe prizegiving  'Ou est le capitaine? has long been one of the more irritating FAQs for solo women sailors and members of all-female crews, as on-shore officials or casual passers-by look automatically for the man in charge. Perhaps it’s finally falling out of use in the wake of consistent female achievement? Look at Barry Pickthall’s photo of the crowds at Les Sables D’Olonne cheering Kirsten Neuschäfer, winner of the 2022-23 Golden Globe Race: consider 80-year-old Jeanne Socrates, the oldest person (not woman) to have sailed round the world alone and unassisted via the Southern Ocean’s five great capes, who has recently set out again to cruise across the Pacific. Last year I wrote about the appointment of Jude Terry as Britain’s first female Admiral and  the achievement of England’s  Lionesses  football team, building on the determination of their 20th predecessors . Currently the military buzz is around Lt General Sharon Nesmith possibly becoming the ...

 June was National Crime Reading Month and there were lots of events up and down the country. I had three Murder In Merton events which went well - a Crime author fair at West Barnes Library, a panel at Wimbledon Library with Robert Gold, Saima Mir and Olivia Kiernan, and a crime writing workshop, which I did with Biba Pearce, at Wimbledon Library. Crime Author Fair at West Barnes Library It was a very hot day to come out but the library has air con! Four authors came to talk about their novels, chat to readers and sell a few books too. Amer Anwar gave a short talk on his extraordinary publishing journey. Huge thanks to Amer Anwar, Sarah Clarke, Biba Pearce and ML Rose for coming along. We had a quiz for our audience, which I didn’t think was too hard, but apparently it was, as only one person got full marks! The winner took home a selection of books, a notebook, pen, mug and, most important of all, a bag of my triple chocolate cookies! We had a great afternoon in the coolness of W...

I was procrastinating on social media the other day – as you do, or as I do, anyway – and got involved in a conversation where somebody posted the beginning of a book and asked if anyone would be interested in an ARC in the hope of a review on publication. The cover looked a bit home-made (and yes, it really does matter. Rightly or wrongly, people absolutely do judge a book by its cover), but the plot seemed similar to stuff I write – dark and gritty thriller – and so I said I’d give it a go. I like this sort of thing and I'm always interested in how other writers treat the same material. We can all learn from analysing other people's writing. I don’t do this often. Really, I don’t. I’ve been burned too many times by agreeing to read unreadable books, and I don’t like to be in a position where I’m unable to leave a ‘good’ review and feel morally unable not to leave a review at all. You’d think I’d know better by now, wouldn't you? A PDF duly arrives and I swap it for an e...