Blog

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Chloe Banks to my blog. Chloe is twenty-eight and lives in Devon with her husband and baby son. She says that she started writing earlier than she can remember and was writing ‘novels’ for her sisters by the age of eight. Despite this early promise, she neglected literature for sport…
» Continue Reading

In 2013, I had the great pleasure of hearing John Irving speak at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. It’s hard to believe that so gifted a writer is dyslexic, but Irving claimed that this condition is one of greatest gifts. Knowing that he had to work twice as hard at school as his contemporaries, he developed the…
» Continue Reading

Today, I’m handing over the reins to Roz Morris. Roz published nearly a dozen novels and achieved sales of more than four million copies – and nobody saw her name because she was a ghostwriter. She is now proudly self-publishing as herself with two acclaimed literary novels My Memories of a Future Life and Lifeform Three….
» Continue Reading

I met Lucy Furlong when she took part in The New Libertines (described by its founder as a touring troupe of troubadour tearaways) It Only Hurts The First Time event last summer, and we recently bumped into each other at Alice Furse’s book launch, where we discussed all things poetry and publishing related with Clive…
» Continue Reading

Today I’m delighted to welcome, Mark Farrell, the man behind Ascribe Novel Solutions, to my blog. Mark has written five novels, four of which he says will almost certainly never see the light of day. Since coming agonisingly close to success with his most recent novel, The Shoemaker’s Apprentice, he is taking a break from writing…
» Continue Reading

Alexander Games went to school in Hampstead, north-west London. He read Classics at Cambridge, a subject he would return to when getting his first ‘serious’ job, teaching Latin in a prep school in south-west London. After university, he worked on Auberon Waugh’s Literary Review magazine, then moved to Spain for a year, where he claims…
» Continue Reading

I’m delighted that Amy Mason has agreed to appear on my blog. She is thirty-two, currently lives in Oxford and her debut novel The Other Ida has just won the 2014 Dundee International Book Prize. This year’s biggest prize for unpublished authors, it came with a modest pot of gold and a contract for publication with…
» Continue Reading

Today, I’m delighted to invite Alison Morton to my blog. Alison writes Roman-themed alternate history thrillers with strong heroines. She holds a bachelor’s degree in French, German and Economics, a masters’ in history and lives in France with her husband. She is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s New Writers’ Scheme, the Historical Novel Society, the Alliance of…
» Continue Reading

You may ask why I love physical books. What could be more absorbing than trawling the bookshelves of two of the most fascinating characters of the twentieth century, Vita Sackville-West and her husband, author, diplomat and politician, Harold Nicolson? At Sissinghurst Castle, a team of expert conservationists are doing just that. This painstaking project will last…
» Continue Reading

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Julie Harris to my blog. Julie is a prolific writer whose works include No Exit, The Longest Winter, Fool’s Gold, The Site, The Diamond Factory, Beyond Laughter, An Absence of Angels, Kizzy, The Edge of Nowhere, A Tear of Blood, One Act of Kindness and Anything for Love. Since 1992 she…
» Continue Reading