Across the sea to Dublin

I was delighted to be invited to speak at the International Dublin Writers’ Festival again. This year, the theme was the creative well, something essential to good writing, but a slippery one to grasp. In essence, it’s the part of you that feeds your imagination. If it’s kept at a healthy level, it will […]

Writing retreating

Left to right: Me, Carol Cooper, Jean Gill, Jane Davis, Karen Inglis, Clare Flynn, Lorna Fergusson in April 2024

No, I don’t mean retreating from your writing, but going on a writing retreat.

A retreat implies withdrawing from the world.

A writing retreat implies getting away from the everyday and being able to […]

Plagues ancient and modern

Statue of recumbant Roman woman

Recently, I caught Covid-19. Not a unique story these days, but I’d dodged it until last month. Vaccinated five times and an avid mask wearer, I’d been hyper-careful. I was nervous last year when I started to go to author events, either to speak or take part. I was a rare person at the London […]

How to get through the fog of 2022 into 2023

Let’s face it – 2022 has been a weird year.

Coming out of the strict Covid regulations and try to recover a ‘normal’ (ha-ha!) book life, I planned a busy year. And so it turned out:

On 3 January, I published my husband’s fantastic book File of Facts about using personal organisers. (He is […]

Embarrassed of Roma Nova catch-up

When I checked when I’d written my last post, I was horrified out of my socks. May! And it was a feature about my esteemed writing friend Jane Davis’s beautiful new book, Small Eden. It’s achingly well written – I will never be able to write such clever and evocative prose.

Since then, radio silence […]