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MAKING THEM REAL …

Characters – the essential ingredients in any novelist’s store cupboard. In fact, for novels that are character rather than plot driven, these people form the foundation and structure of the whole business. For me, it’s where it all starts. Not with a high speed, complex and action driven scenario that will propel the thing from the first page through to the last. Not at all. My novels always start with an idea for a character. And then another and another intrude until, rather like gathering a host of admirable and fascinating friends together, something has to happen. They can’t all...

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A CELEBRATION OF LIBRARIES

This week, as most book lovers and avid readers will know, is LIBRARIES WEEK, and a chance to celebrate our wonderful, much-loved and treasured libraries that for many of us have been an essential part of our entire lives. In fact, it often feels as if libraries have been more formative and vital to me than any other national institution. And I am sure many other readers feel the same. My earliest memory of The Library, though, is before I could even read and was no doubt still in a pushchair. I remember my mother visiting the Boots Lending Library...

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MOTHERS AND SONS in LITERATURE

A child needs your love when he deserves it least – Lionel Shriver’s line from We Need to Talk about Kevin which sums things up so succinctly and entirely that it seems any other words written about mothers and their relationships with their children are redundant. But of course some of our most famous works of literature have at their heart this extraordinary bond and since in the past ten days or so I have both celebrated my own son’s 26th birthday – and yes, there were fewer than 6 of us there! – and taught HAMLET online to some...

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WHAT’S IN A NAME …?

Quite a lot, it seems. In a name, that is. Juliet might have thought, in the throes of youthful passionate love at first sight, that it didn’t matter what Romeo’s name was, but readers of novels often respond differently. And writers too, of course. In the recent live Facebook interview I did with Hillingdon libraries, I was asked by a member of the online audience how I choose the names of my characters – a great question that actually took some thought to answer. After all, names are so important. We all hold connotations and associations with names. Names suggest...

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The Potency of Cheap Music …

In Crete, despite the face masks and near deserted streets and beaches, it was possible to shut out a certain awareness of our current situation. The absence of constant media intrusion determined to present a negative and pessimistic view was thankfully absent. After all, there were no glaring headlines on the White Mountains visible from our balcony. No fear-spreading in the clear early morning light or in the glorious mid evening sunsets. It was easy to think that other horizons existed, that the word ‘virus’ was not the only one of importance in everyone’s vocabulary. Yet back in England with...

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AN INVITATION FROM HILLINGDON LIBRARIES

The lovely people at Hillingdon Libraries have invited me to a live FACEBOOK interview on Thursday September 3rd at 7.00 pm as part of their HOW AUTHORS HAVE STAYED PRODUCTIVE IN LOCKDOWN series of interviews – to talk about writing during lockdown and my next novel. So please listen in!

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WAKING TO CICADA SOUNDS

It’s very early dawn, barely the first sign of light, when the noises start – Cock-A-Doodle-Doos from a few roosters anxious to get on with the business of their day.  But they are easy to ignore and I am quickly back to sleep. Then it’s the first goat bells ringing – a less intrusive sound and one that manages to blend in with a lazy wish to resist waking. But the cicadas are less easy to ignore – if only for the reason that they are proof of a later hour and certainly a reminder that it is definitely time...

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Another Audio Blog – Enjoy!

Going to Chesham to record Chiltern Voice with Antonia Honeywell brought back many memories – because Chesham was where I began my teaching career. My first job was at Chesham High School in 1978 – an utterly exhausting, draining year as all initial – or probationary, as we used to call them – years are for teachers. But I survived. Just. Returning to  Chesham to talk about my second novel on local radio was a very pleasant exchange for those early days in the classroom! Here is a second extract. Click to listen: [podcast id=2039] With thanks to Antonia Honeywell...

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An Audio Blog – Enjoy!

Last November, in that curious prelapsarian world where face masks had connotations of criminality and the failure to shake hands or embrace on greeting was considered impolite, I went to Chesham to be interviewed live on Chiltern Voice Radio  by writer and broadcaster, Antonia Honeywell. THE LEGACY OF MR JARVIS had just been published and in between hearing my choice of music played (very Desert Island Discs format!) we discussed my second novel as well as the writing process in general. As a change from my normal blog, here is an audio extract from that broadcast – with another couple...

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Those Excellent Women Writers …

It was at the wonderful bookshop in London’s  Lambs’ Conduit Street – PERSEPHONE BOOKS – where I found Noel Streatfeild’s  novel SAPLINGS and discovered that the writer we no doubt associate with childhood reading also wrote for adults. In fact, she wrote 16 novels for adults and spent her writing career publishing books for both adults and children. And after reading SAPLINGS I am so relieved that I can return to Noel Streatfeild and seek out all her other adult novels to complement, as it were, my childhood obsession with Ballet Shoes, White Boots, The Bell Family, The Painted Garden et al. SAPLINGS was published at...