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Find a book club
Find a Book Club, a club that does what it says on the tin, asked me to recommend 10 books for book clubs (including two of my own).
Category Archives: Writing
Tell Climate Change Stories
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, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Climate Change, Creativity, Human Rights, Science, Storytelling, Writing
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Flowers from a Stone
Flowers that find their way through stone or rock (or any apparently impenetrable surface) always touch my heart. They manage to flourish in the most (apparently) inhospitable places. I’ve been rewriting a novel I thought I’d finished last autumn. But … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Creativity, Fiction, Flowers/Blossom, Gardening, Rewriting, Writers, Writing
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Windrush, 75 years on
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Allyship, Antiracism, Art, Black History, Books, Creativity, Democracy, Equality, Fiction, History, Human Rights, Morality, Racism, Windrush, Writers, Writing
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Reading Black Writers
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 … Continue reading
Reading as a writer. Writing as a reader. And the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Creativity, Fiction, Literary Prizes, Psychology, reading, Writers, Writing, Writing Courses
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Black Minds Matter (BMM) : donations #BMMUK21K
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Antiracism, Fiction, Health, Mental Health, Psychology, Racism, Writing
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Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Antiracism, Books, Creativity, Equality, Human Rights, Literary Prizes, Psychology, Racism, White Fragility, Women, Writing
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What does it mean to be white? It means I’m racist
In a recent interview, Robin DiAngelo, a white person, said that to understand my racism, as a white person, I need to ask myself: What does it mean to be white? She said that if I ask myself if I’m racist … Continue reading
Posted in Antiracism, Equality, Human Rights, Psychology, Racism, White Fragility, Writers, Writing
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Can we ever know our parents as individuals? And One Green Thing: cling film storage alternatives
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Drink, Food, One Green Thing, Parents, Plastic, Storage, Storytelling, Writing
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City Tales, and Hive
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 … Continue reading
Janet Clare on getting published later on, and Vice’s Broadly.
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 … Continue reading
Comfort Zones, and Client Earth
The other day, in Chichester, I found and bought a book. This is a (very) common thing in my life (although it usually happens in London) but I bought this book in Jigsaw which isn’t a bookshop. Copies were sitting on … Continue reading
Posted in Bookshops, Climate Change, Design, Fiction, Things that don't fit anywhere else, Women, Writers, Writing
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Anne Lamott’s Twelve True Things; and Human Libraries
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Artists, Creativity, Love, Mental Health, Psychology, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Women, Writers, Writing
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Make Good Art, a resolution for the new year
In January 2016, I quoted Neil Gaiman’s wonderful advice which is, essentially, whatever you’re doing, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Artists, Creativity, Fiction, Uncategorized, Writing
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Jericho Writers’ Self-Editing Your Novel Course, and the wonders of Atlas Obscura: destinations, food and drink
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Drink, Fiction, Food, Places, Rewriting, Storytelling, Third Novel, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing Courses
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Creativity and Patience; and walks with Mental Health Mates
Being an artist means … ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms … summer [will] come. But it comes only to the patient … patience is everything! from Rainer Maria Rilke’s advice to Franz Xaver … Continue reading
Posted in Artists, Creativity, Mental Health, Poetry, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Walking, Writers, Writing
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Literary Villains, Literary Summer Reads and an idyllic treehouse in East Sussex (where you can stay)
Forty of the Best Villains in Literature appear in this article at The Literary Hub (where you’ll find many literary goodies). The villains include the obvious: Mr Hyde, Mrs Danvers, Uriah Heep, Mr Rochester, Dr Frankenstein, Hannibal Lecter and many more. But … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Fiction, Places, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Writing
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Women writers, and children; and Retro Peepers
I’ve never had children and the reason (apart from meeting the man whose children I’d love to have had well beyond my fertile years) is that I was always afraid that looking after children would eat so far into my … Continue reading
Posted in Artists, Creativity, Design, Things I'd Love to Have Made, Women, Writers, Writing
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John Clare, gardener and writer; and Bloom & Wild
In this strange spring and early summer of ours, where March’s snow, frost and ice stopped all plant growth and May’s hot days and tropical rainstorms encouraged it wildly, I’ve been wondering how many writers worked as gardeners. I only found … Continue reading