Writing Blog
What’s your writing inspiration this summer?
Summer days are great for lots of things – getting out and enjoying your city or town, meeting up with friends, spending more time with family, taking holidays and slipping out of the rhythms of the daily grind. For writers, it can also be a time for inspiration. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a period…
Read MoreSeven essential elements of a bestselling novel
The ever-helpful Writer’s Digest fuels the imagination of aspiring authors with their handy checklist: Seven essential elements of a bestselling novel. Some – like readability and reasons to care – are obvious. Others, like seeking out controversy are interesting suggestions. The example provided uses as an example Scarlett O’Hara of Gone with the Wind. By any…
Read MoreFavorite summer reads? Part 2
Last week I wrote about summer reading in general, those distant memories of long summer holidays and stacks of good books I’d devour as a child. Seems that, despite work, and family obligations, and-ahem-the tiny amount of time I (should) eke out for writing, some things simply don’t change. I still love summer reading, and…
Read MoreFavorite summer reads?
I don’t know what it is about summer, but the books I read over the summer holidays are always indelibly stamped on my brain. I can remember long summer holidays as a kid, and the books I read. I remember being nine, sitting by a lake and reading the terrifying story of ‘Bella’, a possessed…
Read MoreEarth to female authors? The Booker Prize 2014
The longlist to the Booker 2014 has been released, and what a white-male-dominated list it is. I’ve already written about innovative social media campaigns such as #Readwomen2014, created because talented, female authors are largely ignored by mainstream literary journals. I also read excellent sites such as The Writes of Women and VIDA , both of which bring…
Read More19th century meets the 21st century: The Austen Project
I’ve been reading Sense & Sensibility, not the original, but the first volume of ‘The Austen Project‘. The AustenProject teams up contemporary authors with 19th century classics written by one of my favorite authors of all time – Jane Austen. The first novel in the series is written by British bestselling author Joanna Trollope, and…
Read MoreVery Inspiring Book Blogs Award
The Very Inspiring Blogger Award is flying like an angel around the blogosphere, touching down on many of the dedicated and inspiring people out there dedicated to books and writing and sharing the word on literature. I’m very proud to be nominated for this award. A big thanks to Claire, over at the wonderful Word by Word,…
Read MoreYoung adult adventure in belle Paris: Author interview with Evelyne Holingue
I’m extremely happy to have talented author Evelyne Holingue on my blog today. I met Evelyne through her fabulous blog. I was bound to love Evelyne’s blog and her writing. Evelyne is from France (alongside Italy, my favorite country in the world), where she grew up in beautiful Normandy and studied in Paris. As an…
Read MoreTwo countries separated by a common language
…or so says the famous line attributed to George Bernard Shaw (except, of course, it seems it may never have been written by the great playwright.) Nevertheless, it’s still a killer line, and one that often springs to mind when I create a non-American fictional character and need to be careful about dialogue. I thought…
Read MoreTruth or (ancient) fiction?
I recently went with my family to visit the fabulous Alma-Tadema exhibition in Rome at the Chiostro del Bramante. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was a Dutch artist who moved to England and became part of the late nineteenth century Pre-Raphaelite movement. Although not as well known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti or Edward Burnes-Jones, Alma-Tadema’s artwork was…
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