Authors Electric

I recently discovered that AI is being trained to do something I want it to do even less than I want it to write novels or design book covers or publish social media posts. It’s organising travel. Although there is very little point in making travel plans myself at the time of writing, because, for various boring medical reasons, I can’t actually travel anywhere for a while, I am no stranger to the task of organising travel. I must admit that in some cases (though not always) the planning process has been quite a bit more fun, or at least very much less stressful, than the actual travel. In fact I am quite tempted to start planning a trip now even without making any real bookings, just to keep my hand in. Of course, the more complicated the trip and therefore the more fun to organise, the more potential there is for things to go wrong. I had several panic attacks in the time leading up to my ‘North American tour’ of October 2001, partly because I hadn’t flown since 1978 and partly ...

brooch from a writing course goodie bag Sometimes as a writer it is essential to be selfish, especially for those who are carving out a writing career in between paid employment and family life. I am fortunate in many ways that my circumstances allow me to write whenever and wherever I can, but there are still times when I need to prioritise my own writing above everything else or I will never publish another book. “You can’t be a one hit wonder!” said my brother at my book launch. Well actually, I can if that one book has scratched an itch and fulfilled my dreams, but I want to write another and another after that. I scour my to do list for the things that I can drop rather than juggle this month. Sadly, writing for the Author Electric blog is being cut this month. I won’t say sorry but instead offer some advice – sometimes it is not only good to say NO to things but it is essential. Sometimes it takes many years to develop this wisdom, but at the age of 57 I’ve almost cra...

                             Mum and Dad, Their War Remembered   The photographs stood on top of the dark mahogany tallboy throughout my childhood. The frame of Dad’s was made of wood, and the date on the back of the photograph is December 1944, Mum’s frame was of metal and there is no date on the photo.    Mum had kept them on the tallboy long after Dad had died in 1962 from a long-term illness. I had put them away for storage following Mum’s death in 1999, after we had cleared the house.  The tallboy was taken away by a furniture recycling centre from Garston, an area of Liverpool near my home.    Today, I removed the photographs from their frames and copied them so that I could post them on this site. My parents were in the RAF - Mum a WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force), Dad an astro-navigator, who had eventually risen to the rank of Flight Lieutenant. He had started the war ...

Now THIS is what I should have posted last month, just ahead of the 80th anniversary of VE Day on 8th May, and if I’d been more switched on (and less distracted by the disturbingly named Mandela effect ), I would have done. Still, we’re only a few days away from celebrating the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings on 5th June, 1944, so very much still in the remembering mode, in which eye witness accounts have increasing value as that generation passes away altogether. Going through the papers left by my late mother, Ruth Heppel, I found all the letters she wrote to her elder brother and sister-in-law in India during the Second World War. As a portrait of a teenager living through the Blitz (her home was bombed twice and the family had to be rehoused), they make a fascinating record; but what stands out is the one dated 10th May 1945, in which Ruth, by then a 19 year-old art student, gives an astonishingly vivid account of the VE Day celebrations in London. The joyous uproar she d...

  I recently watched an online clip of Robbie Williams making an acceptance speech for an award. He’d ‘like to thank drugs, alcohol, ADHD, anxiety, addiction, body dysmorphia’ – (and a whole host of other crippling conditions) ‘without which none of this would have been possible’, he tells us. Yes, it was funny, but as an author who is also a performer, I found myself relating to that strange dichotomy between self-deprecation and loud obnoxious drama-queen. You may think that we lie when we describe ourselves as socially awkward and shy – after all, we jump up to show off with the most massive egos at every opportunity. We can’t wait to grab the limelight in a blaze of ridiculous costumes and glitter – and in my case giant gold wings! But I’m here to tell you that underneath every mammoth motor-mouth is a quieter, sensible and often anxious human being. Just consider how many people in show-biz are addicts, alcoholics, reclusive, exercise junkies, dysfunctional, depressed – or use...

The British Library just posted me a book. The Dead of Summer I won’t lie: it makes me feel sort of special to have a large, hard-backed and very handsome book posted to me by Britain’s National Library, the book-branch of the British Museum. And what a gorgeous book! A glowing scarlet with gilt illustrations. As the sub-title says, it’s a collection of, ‘strange tales of May Eve and Midsummer.’ There is something eerie about those days, sunny though they might be. They’re two of the year’s great ‘turning days,’ linked to superstition, magic and myth for centuries beyond memory. The barriers between the worlds grows thin as smoke in mid-summer dusk as much as in mid-winter dark— and the hyacinth scent of massed bluebells is a dangerous thing. Never fall asleep in a bluebell wood, it's said. If you do, you won't wake in your own world or time. The Dead of Summer ’s editor, Johnny Mains, chose the stories from books in the British Library’s collection. The first story is ...

My May offering is a children's title aimed at readers aged 9+ (or 'middle grade' as it is known in the US). As a fantasy title aimed at younger readers, this one is much closer to my own territory than the books I've reviewed so far this year. But the gorgeous cover complete with golden highlights on the paperback edition caught my adult eye, while the mermaid-themed plot subtly blends fantasy with our real world, making it accessible to readers who might struggle with completely fantasy worlds. Stormswept by Helen Dunmore The island off the coast of Cornwall where our heroine Morveren lives is connected at low tide to the mainland, where she and her twin sister Jenna and their younger brother Digory attend a normal school - no lessons in wizardry or riding broomsticks here! The fantasy happens on their island in a quiet, understated way, when they find a strange boy called Malin injured on the beach after a storm and try to help him. This is complicated because, inste...