All pages that are unrelated to events
‘Nice watch,’ I overheard a woman say to her friend in the gym. ‘Trouble is,’ the watch-wearer replied. ‘It hasn’t worked for years. But it has sentimental value, so I can’t get rid of it. And now I’m always late.’ Like her, I used to have an attachment to stuff. After my father died, I … Read more
Refuge is a collection of short stories put together in order to raise money for the refugee crisis. It includes some fantastic pieces from some of my favourite authors, Stella Duffy included. It’s an honour to be listed alongside them. For just a fiver you can contribute to the lives of people who have had … Read more
Starting to write Crime Fiction with Penny Hancock and Kate Rhodes Crime fiction writers, if you need a boost, come along to our Guardian Masterclass on 2nd and 3rd May and let us help you realise your ideas http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-masterclasses/2015/mar/18/starting-to-write-fiction-penny-hancock-writing-course
Testimonials The encouragement and guidance I received from Penny and my fellow writers restored my flagging faith in what I was trying to do. It can be difficult to talk about your writing to a group of strangers but Penny was able to establish a calm and supportive atmosphere from the start. Raili Taylor … Read more
Where do stories come from? The other day one of my oldest friends was clearing out her attic and found a letter I’d written to her thirty years ago…. Friday Sept 24 1982 ‘At the moment I’m feeling a little shaken up since we drove home through very wet dark streets & I almost knocked … Read more
Tideline my psychological thriller about a middle aged woman who incarcerates a beautiful teenage boy is available for 99p on kindle daily deals on Amazon for 99p Saturday November 8th 2014 only
Blog tour The wonderful writer Susan Elliot Wright, (a fellow Simon and Schuster author) kindly invited me to be involved in this blog tour. You can find her honest account of the writing process, and read about her fascination with nature versus nurture, family, and mental health, at www.susanelliotwright.co.uk. I love Susan’s writing. Her book … Read more
Stranger than Fiction I don’t make a habit of peering through people’s letterboxes. But yesterday I was on one of my ‘walkabouts’, in search of images for a crime scene in my new novel, something sinister on the shore maybe, evidence of rubber gloves pulled off in a hurry, the use of ship’s rope washed … Read more
‘Should you,’ a writer friend asked recently, ‘read books that have similar themes to yours when writing a novel? Or does this mean you might be influenced? Put off by the brilliance of the other person’s handling of the subject? Might you feel despondent that someone’s already had your idea? Inadvertently nick an idea and … Read more
The French version of Tideline is getting lots of nice reviews from French critics. “On connaissait les “cougars”, ces femmes d’âge mûr sortant leurs griffes pour déniaiser des garçons-jouets bien plus jeunes qu’elles. Sonia, l’héroïne du premier roman de l’Anglaise Penny Hancock, est, elle, une quadragénaire qui pousse sa félinité un peu trop loin. Alors … Read more