Like so many things, our Bath Writers and Artists calendar has had to be rejigged and our day of contemplating The Sea has been postponed. But with the coast out of bounds to everyone except its native inhabitants (how I wished I’d followed an urge to drive to Clevedon just before the lockdown!) what better … Continue reading A (virtual) day at the seaside
I’ve always been aware that there were Roman remains at Caerleon but somehow never managed to get there, so when I heard about a day out in South Wales with Bristol Bloggers which combined Caerleon with a canal walk, I jumped at the chance, and if the weather forecast wasn’t the best, all ten of … Continue reading From @fourteenlocks to @RomanCaerleon: several centuries in one day #overthebridgetowales
In June 2018, Nuala O’Connorwas kind enough to give me a copy of her 2015 novel Miss Emily when we met at the Bath Flash Fiction Festival I’ve only just got around to reading it and discovering that rare thing – a really lovely and satisfying example of historical/biographical fiction. A famously reclusive writer can’t … Continue reading Helpers and Handmaids: Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor #historicalfiction #biographicalfiction
I don’t suppose it’s surprising that composing in different artistic genres and media should be simialr but these things always catch me unawares. Like on Sunday when I was half-listening to Elaine Page on Radio 2 interviewing songwriter Steven Schwartz. When he alluded to songs which tell a story successfully, something he also tries to … Continue reading Song and Story: a lightbulb moment on Radio 2. #writingtips #writerscraft #showdonttell
If you’ve never heard of it, Nanowrimo is an annual event in which novelists and aspiring novelists are challenged each November to write 50,000 words in the course of the month. It’s been going on for quite a while and although, November being a Novemberish kind of month, I occasionally make a private challenge to … Continue reading #Nanowrimo2019 – what’s the point?
As most of you will know, when writing in In the Bink of an Eye I was careful – (some might say too careful, to those who spotted the odd gaffe not careful enough!) – to stick to ‘the facts as we know them.’ And if anyone would like a summary of the story I … Continue reading On getting history very slightly wrong (then winning a prize)
I didn’t intend this blog to be a travelogue but Denmark surprised me enough to want to feel the need to shout about it. I’m not sure what I expected of Copenhagen other than a change of air and maybe something akin to Amsterdam. In fact although there are canal-side walks which ressemble the Dutch … Continue reading Denmark: old and new and more than its very good pastries
