I wasn’t supposed to be a writer. I was supposed to be an iconic artist or a world-famous DJ spinning the wheels of steel in front of a crazy festival crowd. Writing was a complete accident. It wasn’t an accident that I learned to actually write – we all have to do that. It was […]
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I have always ‘done’ funny. Both as a reader, and a writer. As a child, I snorted through every page of every Dr Seuss, laughed until I cried at Russell Hoban’s inspired creation Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong in her iron hat cooking mutton sog, and the mere mention of the East Pagwell Canal from Professor Branestawm […]
Read moreMy stories are a bit like a fairy with bunions. They are fantasy but they have their feet in the real world. What I really love is making startling, spooky or paranormal things happen in the ‘real’ world that we all know and recognize. When I started out with Dax Jones in the very first […]
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Sally Prue, author of Song Hunter , on the very beginnings of art and creative thinking, including her experience of visiting the British Museum exhibition on Ice Age Art . (This is an expanded version of a piece first posted on Sally’s Song Hunter blog .) Making up stuff is important. No, really: life and death important. Writing a story or painting a picture may […]
Read moreCelebrating the publication of The Rachel Riley Diaries: The Life of Riley , Joanna Nadin shares what she wanted to be when she grew up! I never wanted to be a writer when I grew up. That is to say, it didn’t occur to me that writing was a “real” job, much less one that I would be capable of, or derive enjoyment […]
Read moreHistorical fiction author Marie-Louise Jensen introduces us to the hidden world of smuggling – the backdrop to her latest novel Smuggler’s Kiss. Isabelle is rescued from drowning by the crew of a notorious smuggling ship, and finds herself in a world of adventure, romance, and a thrilling fight for justice. Researching smuggling is a tortuous […]
Read moreThe inimitable Geraldine McCaughrean shares her experience of writing The Positively Last Performance , her wonderful new novel about a seaside town and a theatre full of ghosts, each with their own story to tell. First it was Turner, then Tracey Emin. Even the Rough Guide put it among the world’s ten top resorts. Karl Marx and T. S. Eliot […]
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Sally Prue on the influence of her childhood on her latest novel, Song Hunter : the story of a girl at the dawn of the Ice Age. ‘Hm,’ said my husband Roger. ‘This is a very autobiographical novel, isn’t it.’ Now the startling thing about Roger’s comment is that the book in question was my novel Song Hunter; and Song Hunter is not […]
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The wonderful Tim Bowler writes on our relationship with the sea, as explored in his latest novel, Sea of Whispers : a haunting tale of love, loss, courage, and mystery in a beautifully-evoked remote island setting. I am writing this blog piece from a favourite spot: a high nest in a little town perched above the sea on the south […]
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Award-winning author Gillian Cross writes about the inspiration for her latest novel, After Tomorrow – a dark survival thriller scarily close to home . . . Ideas can come from very unexpected places. After Tomorrow takes place in England and France, but it started with a picture of boys in Africa. I was doing some work with a charity […]
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