Last Monday I was on the bus trying not to touch anything with my hands- -which is tricky if you are visually impaired, bus lurching, Mitzie sliding helplessly into the aisle. Back then, hundreds of long hours ago, when we were still living in that other England, a gaggle of pensioners were braving it out in the backseats, muttering, squeaking and giggling like teenagers bunking off school. Across from Mitzie and I, a baby in a pram coughed snottily […]
Oh, What A Night!
My Mum was over from France which was lucky. ‘How does this look?’ I asked, feeling 15 years old. My eyes are still bit blurry but I also have NO fashion sense! ‘Emmm… it’s ‘nice”, said Mum with a worried expression. My heart plummeted. You see my Mum can’t lie about things like this. Her using the word ‘nice’ is like a surgeon using the word, ‘hopeful’. Not something you want to hear a few minutes before the op. I […]
Countdown to Launch!
Okay, I reckon there is still time. It is Tuesday night and the launch is on Friday. If I don’t eat, do fifty lunges, 100 press-ups and a thousand stretches each hour, I can probably lose the weight and gain the two inches that I feel I need to face the public. I don’t see any real problem with this…apart from the eye thing. Ah… You see I had cataract surgery two weeks ago and am not supposed to do […]
CULL Book Launch! Celebrate with Me!
Three years, a PhD, a myriad rejections, eventually an excited agent, an amazing publisher and a torrent of support, encouragement and kicking up the arse and LOOK what happened! CULL has been born and you are all welcome to the party! I have so much to tell you but just for the moment, I wanted to let you know that, as of January 2019, the novel CULL is in the shops, thanks to YOU! Your official invitation to the CULL […]
Grace, CULL and the End (of 2017, that is)!
I have been out-calendared. Seriously. Here is me handing over a pretty (perchance a little dull) South West Guide Dog Association calendar to Grace’s new family for Christmas. ‘Grace is Ms December!’ I twinkle smugly. ‘Ahh, that’s lovely!’, they reply, handing me a calendar they have made themselves. On their shiny calendar, EVERY month is Grace month!!! Grace, and Max her new buddy, Grace with all the balls, Grace camping, Grace eating Grace, Grace…! ‘Holy Bonio, Grace,’ I hiss. ‘How […]
We are fully funded so what happens now…?
CULL is fully funded so what happens next? The first thing I have to do is reread my original manuscript. It’s been several months since I did this and so it seems fresher with all rot, blots, clutter and shoddy bits now fully exposed. It’s my job to prune, clip, zapp and add compost. I have promised this will be done by 20th September, whereupon I shall send it post-haste to the Unbound production team in London. They will read […]
We Did It! 100%!!
100%!!!! Thank you!! More soon… remember, you can still pledge to buy the novel in advance AND this bank holiday weekend there is a 10% discount if you put in the voucher code BANK10 when you visit the website!
Creating literary medicine from Nazi poison
I write this to celebrate the wonderful news that we have hit 91% …and have 207 beautiful, brave, clearly remarkably intelligent and compassionate supporters. I want to thank you with all my heart! I also write this because it is the 21st August and Deaf and Disability organisations from across the United Kingdom will today highlight the Government’s ongoing human rights violations and evasive behaviour towards a major United Nations committee. This is happening today because the UK government has to […]
And still we rise…! 84%!
CULL has hit 84% of total and is on a roll! For those of you unsure about what this is all about, what the hell kind of novel it is and why on earth you should pledge and become part of this wonderful project, please allow me to shed some light! CULL is my second novel, a literary fiction set in ‘another England’ where austerity has set the country’s teeth on edge. Hate crime is on the rise and the […]
The Creative Writing Laboratory!
What on earth is a ‘Creative Writing Laboratory’ and why should I try one? Research has shown the incredible benefits of the arts on health; both mental and physical. In the last couple of months alone I have come across new research providing greater scientific evidence of the powerful effects of expressive arts. I heard, for instance, at the Culture, Health and Well Being Conference in Bristol this week, that changes occurring in the human genome, ‘turned on’ following severe […]