Now A Major Motion Picture, a novel by Peter Wise: for Christmas

November 14, 2025Books, Christmas, Creativity, Fiction, Gifts, Hope, reading, Reviews, Storytelling, Writers, Writing

If you’re wondering what to buy for the readers in your life for Christmas, can I suggest a gloriously-funny, poignant, heartfelt, beautifully-written novel about the hopes and dreams, ambitions and desires of an unknown screenwriter who gets a call from an Oscar-winning director and dares to believe that, this time, one of his screenplays will … Read More

A Valentine to Life: What Does It Feel Like? Sophie Kinsella

February 14, 2025Art, Books, Creativity, Death and Dying, Fiction, Health, Hope, Kindness, Love, Psychology, Valentine's Day, Writing

Unlike forty-five million people worldwide, I’d never read a Sophie Kinsella novel until I picked up What Does It Feel Like? in my local bookshop a couple of weeks ago. But if, like me, you’re not one of the forty-five million and you think you might never be: read this one. It’s funny. It’s optimistic. … Read More

Tell Climate Change Stories

September 14, 2024Books, Climate Change, Creativity, Human Rights, Science, Storytelling, Writing

On last Tuesday’s The Life Scientific with Jim Al-Khalili, the guest scientist was Professor Peter Stott, a senior climate scientist at The Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Science and Services. The biggest challenge in climate science today, Stott said, is whether we can adapt quickly enough to the increasingly dangerous effects of climate change … Read More

Windrush, 75 years on

June 14, 2023Allyship, Antiracism, Art, Black History, Books, Creativity, Democracy, Equality, Fiction, History, Human Rights, Morality, Racism, Windrush, Writers, Writing

Seventy-five years ago, on 22 June 1948, HMT (His Majesty’s Transport) Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks, on the River Thames. She was named, as many empire ships were, for a British river, in her case the River Windrush, a small Thames tributary. Windrush brought 492 passengers to Britain from several Caribbean islands including Jamaica … Read More

Reading Black Writers

May 14, 2022Allyship, Antiracism, Art, Creativity, Education, Equality, Fiction, History, Human Rights, Literary Prizes, Mental Health in Fiction, Morality, Psychology, Racism, reading, White Allies, Writing

Until George Floyd was murdered on 25 May 2020, I had not begun to acknowledge, let alone unearth, my inherent racism. That racism includes not reading or even thinking about the work of Black writers. But since that May I’ve been reading Black writers and my eyes, ears, heart and mind have been opened (about … Read More

Reading as a writer. Writing as a reader. And the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

August 14, 2021Books, Creativity, Fiction, Literary Prizes, Psychology, reading, Writers, Writing, Writing Courses

Last week a friend of mine and I talked about the six books shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. We’ve done it before and it’s always illuminating (and fun) but because we both write fiction, our conversations are often also about the nature of reading fiction as a writer. Neither of us read – … Read More

Black Minds Matter (BMM) : donations #BMMUK21K

July 14, 2021Allyship, Antiracism, Fiction, Health, Human Rights, Mental Health, Mental Health in Fiction, Mindfulness and mental health, Psychology, Racism, Writing

I’ve been in therapy, but the reasons for my therapy have never included the trauma of racism, of living inside a black or brown skin in a white-supremacist society. Nor have I been misinterpreted because the colour of my therapist’s skin was different from my own. Which is why Black Minds Matter (BMM) is so necessary, … Read More

Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

June 14, 2021Antiracism, Books, Creativity, Equality, Human Rights, Literary Prizes, Psychology, Racism, White Fragility, Women, Writing

This week is the week of the Women’s Prize Virtual Shortlist Festival. For the (almost invisible) amount of £12 you’ll have access to three evenings of readings by the shortlisted writers: there are some wonderful works to hear extracts from on Monday 14th, Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th. I have loved Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: she … Read More

Can we ever know our parents as individuals? And One Green Thing: CLING FILM storage alternatives

March 14, 2020Drink, Food, One Green Thing, Parents, Plastic, Storage, Storytelling, Writing

This year my sisters and I had the family ciné films transferred to DVD and I’ve just watched them all. And as I watched the parts where we children didn’t feature, I wondered if it’s ever possible for children to know their parents as individual independent humans? And I came to the conclusion that it’s … Read More

City Tales, and Hive

September 14, 2019Bookshops, Fiction, Places, reading, Reviews, Storytelling, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Uncategorized, Writing

Since 2004, Oxford University Press has been publishing volumes of City Tales, collections of short stories set in European cities translated into English. The guiding idea is to give the English-speaking reading traveller (I paraphrase): Stories expertly translated by writers with an intimate knowledge of the city in question. The collections have black-and-white photographs to illustrate each … Read More

Janet Clare on getting published later on, and Vice’s Broadly.

August 14, 2019Creativity, Cyberspace, Fiction, Internet, Psychology, reading, Rewriting, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Women, Writers, Writing, Writing Courses

I’ve been meaning to read this article by an older writer about starting to write later in life and how, after a very long writing journey and the discovery that every writer makes at some point, that all writing is rewriting, her novel was published. It’s only taken me eight months to get round to … Read More

Anne Lamott’s Twelve True Things; and Human Libraries

May 14, 2019Artists, Creativity, Love, Mental Health, Psychology, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Women, Writers, Writing

Anne Lamott, whose Bird by Bird helped me immeasurably when I was writing my first novel, Speaking of Love (I was stuck, didn’t know what to write or how, but Lamott’s Bird by Bird dispelled my despair, took my hand and led me step by step through the possibilities and the process, restored my confidence and … Read More

Jericho Writers’ Self-Editing Your Novel Course, and the wonders of Atlas Obscura: destinations, food and drink

December 14, 2018Drink, Fiction, Food, Places, Rewriting, Storytelling, Third Novel, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing Courses

I’m in the final week of Jericho Writers’ Self-Editing your novel course run by Debi Alper and Emma Darwin and all I can say is if you’ve written a first (or even a twenty-first) draft of a novel and you know something’s wrong but you can’t put your finger on it, or you’ve had agent(s) ask for … Read More