Category: TheBookandtheBlade

That was some year! (written in June 2021)

It has been just over a year since I woke up one morning to an email from some lovely people in The States who told me they wanted to publish my little book. A year! 2020. Nothing much happened there, right? Just an ordinary, boring, humdrum kind of year. So I thought I'd let you … Continue reading That was some year! (written in June 2021) →

It’s easy to get a publisher, right?

It turns out I keep this online diary almost as consistently as I keep my personal diary, i.e. hardly ever. This is quite normal for me. I seem to work in flurries of madness separated by long periods of nothing. Well, I say nothing, but the old noggin is always ticking over. It's like a … Continue reading It’s easy to get a publisher, right? →

Before The Book and the Blade

I wrote six books before I started work on The Book and the Blade. They were not great. One, two and three were terrible in fact. Four showed some small promise but floundered (drowned) in the middle. Five was a present for my kids that I'm still happy with, and six was a silly thing … Continue reading Before The Book and the Blade →

Where have you been?

Years ago I ploughed my way through Frank McCourt's books because one of my students was reading Angela's Ashes and raving about it in class, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I read the same book, loved it, and decided to read everything else he had written as well. Somewhere … Continue reading Where have you been? →

Halloween Hearth Stories 2020

I wrote a thing for the Halloween Hearth Stories hosted by Parliament House Press. This weekend and next they are publishing a selection of creepy/spooky/Halloweeny short stories from some of their authors (that's me, Mum!) and my story is online now for you to have a gander at. I'll come clean, I cheated a bit. … Continue reading Halloween Hearth Stories 2020 →