Category Archives: Uncategorized

My heart is usually most invested in, and captured by, my current work in progress, or my WIP as we creatives call it for short. I live in the world that I’ve created; peer out through my characters’ eyes; get lost in those words. Currently I’m dividing my time between two such worlds. I’m editingContinue reading “What’s Next?”

Tracy Fenton’s reputation precedes her. At the London book launch of The Mountain in my Shoe, even my husband knew who she was when I pointed her out, and he’s not an avid reader. There are probably small undiscovered tribes in remote jungles who have heard of her and TBC, Facebook’s THE Book Club. She’sContinue reading “Tracy Fenton – founder of TBC, book-lover, and pert-buttock-owner…”

 Shtum – Jem Lester This was a book I could not read in public. By the end I was a teary wreck. It’s brutally beautiful. Written without restraint, showing us how incredibly hard life can be with an autistic child, the gorgeous Jonah. With utterly real characters, who are flawed and yet courageous, the bookContinue reading “My Top 13 Reads of 2016 (in no particular order…)”

Today – on her birthday! – I’m welcoming Jane Isaac to the website since she’s also celebrating the release of latest novel, Beneath the Ashes, which is so high on my TBR list it’s just about touching the ceiling. With a glass of champers in one hand, and a high five woohoo from the other,Continue reading “Birthday and Beneath the Ashes…”

On conquering my acute public speaking fears… One of the things I’ve had learn to do on this being-published journey is something much more challenging than writing. Writing is a joy – my safe place, somewhere I’m comfortable, something I feel confident about, love. But when your work goes out into the world, you haveContinue reading “From Written Word to Spoken Word”

600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster is a difficult book to categorise, and to describe. Novels like this are always my favourite kind. Just as the best magic tricks are the hardest to explain, the best books are too. I’d heard of it long before I got around to reading, and the only reasonContinue reading “A Couple of Hours of Craig Lancaster”

The Roaring Girls are a Hull-based theatre company, comprising the best northern lasses you could hope to meet, actresses Jess Morley and Rachael Abbey, and also Lizi Perry, and for recent show – Broken Little Robots – composer and musical director James Frewer. Working as an usher at Hull Truck theatre means I get toContinue reading “Broken Little Heart”

  Cherry paper catches stars from the Christmas tree by the scratchy wicker basket. Pink wrapping rips fast, except where Sellotape tugs tight, resisting, putting up a fight.   Bedtime Barbie sleeps through jiggling and jerking and pulling and slippers coming loose in the box to smack her in the face. She needs a kissContinue reading “Bedtime Barbie”

According to the government, my daughter scores a big fat zero when it comes to Type 1 Diabetes, meaning she needs no more care or help than the average 16-year-old.  She is a zero.  Nought.  Nothing.  What she needs to score in order to qualify for Personal Independence Living Allowance (PiP) is outlined below, inContinue reading “A Score of O.”

Travelling with my mother is unlike any other expedition.  She is a whole destination without any sort of journey needed.  So when she texted me the night before one of my most looked-forward-to and nerve-wracking trips of the year and said she’d made a ‘bag of light sandwiches’ for the train, I felt both comfortedContinue reading “One bag of light sandwiches, thirteen writers, buckets of tears, and an incredible coincidence.”