Tag Archives: Authors

Yesterday, Dame Beryl Bainbridge died at the age of 75. I am looking at a photograph of her that must have been taken several years ago, but it is an ageless face. She is resting the side of her face against a hand, which holds a cigarette. (For her, smoking was part of the writing process.) Her…
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My favourite television programme of the moment (shunting Luther and The Good Wife from joint top position) is the BBC1 series, Imagine presented by Alan Yentob. Where it wins is that, without interrupting the flow, Yentob allows his interviewees to speak for themselves. He has brought us many wonderful stories of artists, photographers and sculptors, but this week’s…
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For aspiring writers in need of inspiration, look no further. I was thrilled to read about the story of grandmother, Myrrha Stanford-Smith, who has just signed a deal with publishers, Honno, at the age of 82. Scanning down the page, it was not surprising to learn that Myrrha’s credentials are not limited to matriarch: she is an actress…
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Yesterday, I made my first return to the Winchester Writers Conference since winning the Daily Mail First Novel Award. The conference provides a fantastic opportunity for networking with fellow authors, and those in search of agents, editors and publishers have the opportunity to make their pitches. A full day of lectures had been carefully prepared and rehearsed. And then…
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Today’s recording of BBC’s Bookclub was revealing. Firstly we learned that novelists are usually shorter than we expect them to be. Jeanette Winterson told us how, when she found her microphone set at the lowest possible level, she is often ‘accused’ of being short as if this is conscious decision she has made purely to inconvenience…
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I had the very great pleasure of being introduced to the author, Siri Hustvedt, after being invited to be in the audience of Radio 4’sBookclub. Rather than discuss her latest release, the focus was on her earlier novel, What I Loved, the result of a six-year writing struggle to find the right structure for a story…
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John Irving is the author who made me want to write. No doubt about it. A Prayer for Owen Meany and Cider House Rules are, quite simply, two of the most inspirational novels that I have read. Why? The characterisation is extraordinary. But there is something else about his work that I admire: he has the confidence to approach…
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Remembering the days when there was an honesty box in the wall and you let yourself in, I was deeply saddened when Rosslyn, one of Scotland’s best kept secrets, was turned into a circus after the publication of the Da Vinci Code. So it was with great relief that I heard that Highgate’s visitor numbers…
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It was a rotten Wednesday evening to be dragged out on: dark by six o’clock and relentlessly wet. The whole population of London had simulatiously forgotten how to drive and parking in Wimbledon Town centre – well, you could forget it! As I stood at the door of Waterstones on ticket collection duty, it seemed…
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