Holla back!

What’s wrong with this film review published in today’s Observer? Can you spot the anomaly? Michael Rowe, an Australian writer-director currently resident in Mexico, won the Caméra d’or last May for best first film in the official programme at Cannes for this chamber film. All but the opening scene set in a supermarket takes place [...]

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10 Top Books of 2010

In case you feel the need to slap me, I have already submitted the novel revisions to my agent. Despite having a houseful of guests this weekend and childrens’ social calendars to massage, I was a good little writer. And there is a secret to my success: you know how all the famous artistes of history had wives who did [...]

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In Which I Take a Hiatus

Okay, team, it’s time to say goodbye for a bit. I’ve just received the second round of revisions from my agent and they are somewhat chewy. A bit like a mouthful of muesli without milk. But tastier. I’m taking a blogging hiatus for the rest of the month so that I can finish them in [...]

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The De Lacy Inheritance, Book Review and Author Interview

After a brief blast of sunshine this weekend, German weather has returned to form: cold, wet, Novemberish. With the last few autumn leaves lashing the windows, this is perfect snuggle under the covers and read weather, and luckily I have a piles of lovely books to do just that. One book I have just finished is Elizabeth [...]

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Feeling It – Prose versus Film

  Thanks to Mourner for the pic One of my favourite writer-bloggers, Roz Morris, often talks about how watching and unpicking well-made films can be instructive for writers who are serious about their craft. Roz says in this post that film does have advantages over prose. There can be lots of characters in one scene without [...]

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Hope Against Hope, Review and Author Interview

Hope Against Hope by Sally Zigmond is a fabulous Dickensian slab of a novel. Readers who like a big thick book, as I do, will be entirely satisfied by its ambitious scale and rattling tempo. Just like the railways against which it is set, Hope Against Hope thunders along its track, taking some twists and [...]

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On Reading

I am a susceptible reader. I love books. I love that a writer has spent hundreds of hours constructing an edifice out of words, with a premise, a set-up, characters, a hook, an arc, a climax. I love that that a writer has cared so much about her book that she’s persuaded a literary agent to sign [...]

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Logline Competition

There are logline competitions and blogfests happening all over our strange little corner of the blogosphere today. I was too late for Miss Snark’s competition, so I’ve entered the one on Steena Holmes’ blog, Chocolate Reality (writing and chocolate and a mother-of-three – I could be forgiven for thinking that Steena was me, couldn’t I?). [...]

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