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Today’s Virtual Book Club is a little different. It’s different because it is not the author but the author’s son who’ll be answering my questions. I’m delighted that Mike Donoghue approached me to talk about his late father’s memoir, The Way it Was.  Mike’s father was Malachy Donoghue, Malachy was the fourth of nine children…
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Today, I’m delighted to welcome Clare Flynn back to Virtual Book Club, my interview series which gives authors the opportunity to pitch their novels to your book club. Clare Flynn is the author of eight historical novels and a collection of short stories. A former Marketing Director and management consultant Clare was responsible for marketing…
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Today, I’m delighted to welcome Val Penny to Virtual Book Club, my interview series which gives authors the opportunity to pitch their novels to your book club. Val is an American author living in South West Scotland. She has two adult daughters of whom she is justly proud, and lives with her husband and two…
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Today, I’m delighted to welcome Angelena Boden to Virtual Book Club, my interview series which gives authors the opportunity to pitch their novels to your book club. Angelena describes herself as having a touch of the north wind in her nature. Her free spirit has taken her all round the world, living and working, absorbing…
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Few authors can be as steeped in art – literally since birth – as Valeria Vescina, my first of today’s guest contributors. “My mother is an art historian and my father directed a gallery of twentieth-century art. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting down with books of old-master paintings,” she says. Passionate about…
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A few weeks ago, I was watching a topical panel show. When the question of plastic pollution came up, one of the panelists replied, ‘No, you’re not laying the blame at my door. I bought plastic on the understanding that it would be recycled. It’s not my fault if someone went and dumped it in…
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The focus of this week’s exploration of art in fiction is finding your inspiration. We kick off with a contribution from Michael Jarvie. Michael is a working-class writer from the North East of England. He is the author of the composite novel The Prison and the thriller Black Art. With a BA Honours degree in…
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This week’s Art in Fiction focuses on novels that are set in the mecca of modern art, Tate Modern.  One of my favourite reads in recent months was Harriet P Paige’s Man With A Seagull on his Head, which was nominated for Not The Booker 2017.  Paige perfectly pitches a portrait of outsider artist Ray…
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To give this week’s guest post a rambling introduction would be to do it a disservice. It is more than capable of standing on its own two feet. Suffice to say that, when I read it, I felt as if I’d been given a gift.  Vivienne Tuffnell is a writer, poet, explorer and mystic. She says…
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The week’s exploration of the use of art in fiction (part 2) focuses on novels that tell fictionalised accounts of the lives of real artists.  One of my favourite examples is contained in How to be Both, by Ali Smith. Francesco del Cossa was a 15th Century painter. Although few known examples of his works…
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