This week I borrowed a few shorter pieces of works and short story anthologies from the library. These included more shorts by Du Maurier (whose work I love), Steinbeck and Susan Hill, however I also picked up Virginia Woolf. I have never read Woolf’s works before. Of course I’ve heard bits and pieces, snippets of fact about Virginia Woolf; a foremost author tackling social injustice and women’s, indeed people’s rights with a delicate pen. A lady and pacifist of the intel

I really enjoyed this book. A novel or a novella? At 29,000 words I guess the latter in this day and age. Even my slow and healing brain coped with ease. I was finished in three days and it's an excellent read that tackles some difficult topics still relevant today; namely racism, euthanasia, mental health and the burden of love. Very cleverly done too with the mirrored arc of an old dog and simple man; both loved and not 'mean', but beyond a use-by date. The writing is done

I seem to have been editing for an age, but come close now to being satisfied with a final edit of ’76 and the Odd 93’. I first penned this manuscript between 1993 and 1996. A cathartic exercise drawing on my experience of more than a decade of what the doctors tell me was severe emotional, mental, and physical abuse; my childhood. And I’ll be glad to finish it. A crime-noir piece of fiction, it’s very dark and cuts a bit too close to the bone. That said, I’ve learnt so much

Originally written in mid-2016, this is an old post lifted from my old site. I hope you won't mind. It revisits my return to reading after not having been able to concentrate enough to read for quite some time; that and my first taste of Daphne du Maurier. And I am now a huge fan of her writing. I hope you enjoy it. After returning to my blog last week (back in 2017) I realise how much I miss writing it. In truth, I’ve been blinded and consumed by edits on two novels I’ve

Today I treated myself. No writing. Well, what I mean is no creative writing as yet. There’s still four hours of today left, and after teasing the blog out I might be inspired. It’s my first day off in as long as I remember. Not that a writer ever truly stops. I read Poe, his short: ‘The Masque of the Red Death’. Made notes for my own edits and loved it; the simplicity, brevity, an inevitability to Prospero’s failure to escape the horror of life. There is nothing, no act an

This week I’ve dipped my toe into horror twice. The first by reading Printer’s Devil Court, by the author Susan Hill, and the second by...

Have you ever heard of Cockayne Hatley? Nor had I until I stumbled upon it one day with my daughter, Finty. We were searching for historic sites and ghosts in Potton Wood and only a few miles from where I live in the UK is this tiny little hamlet, as old as the hills and called Cockayne Hatley. In truth, it's no more than a single, deadend lane that occupies two hills on the borders of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire, houses flowing down into a steep valley between. On one

Today I finished reading Poe. In England, teachers only ever teach you about English authors; at least that was what it was like in my youth. In fact, during a recent visit to my library in England, I was met by no Poe on the shelves and left disheartened. And so it is my Sister-In-Law, bless her heart, has scoured the world of the second-hand and bought me a number of his works. What a trick missed by a narrow-minded syllabus. I loved it. Perhaps it was better made by more

The 39 Steps. Surely we all know this one. I loved the movie (the one with Robert Powell) and I've never read the book. So here I am in the library, and in among the classics I see it. A chance to improve my literary kudos. I was excited. I couldn't wait to read it. And never have I felt so let down. It's a testament to Hitchcock, and others of the silver screen, that by moving it onto the big screen they made what is a classic out of a turd. Because, Buchan's writing is awfu

This week I read two books. Sort of. The first was the small and skinny 'The Embassy of Cambodia' by Zadie Smith and the second the humungous hard back from the library, 'Fool's Assassin' by Robin Hobb. So I shall start with the good. I've never read Zadie Smith before and now I'm glad I have. This is a really good short story. The simple writing and narrative really does belie the cruelty of a modern world that is so often hidden behind the mask of respectability as is prov