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Atop the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool, sit two Liver Birds. Bertie faces inland, watching over the city. Bella faces out to sea, watching over the seamen. The birds are surely aware of each other’s presence, sitting as they do at opposite ends of the building, pointing away from each other. They surely feel theContinue reading “Origins of Stories”

From Penny’s #WIP: Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rang the hour, one o’clock. Freddie, roused from his slumber, turned on his side and pulled the duvet over his head. Trying to relax back into sleep that wouldn’t come, his ears picked up the chimes of the grandfather clock along the corridor outside hisContinue reading “Welcome, Penny Hampson!”

From Jenny’s novel, Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange. ‘Do you honestly think I’ll need eighteen pairs of knickers? It’s the Cotswolds, not the Kalahari.’ Thea scooped the entire contents of her underwear drawer onto the bed as Shaun flung open a suitcase. ‘No, I think you’ll need thirty pairs or more, but as you onlyContinue reading “Welcome, Jenny Kane!”

From Lee’s WIP: Looking at the Stars (the first 500 words of a short story) The stars are my chandelier as I stare from the skip I call home. Gamma Leonis hogs the sky until something flashes across it and toward me. Earthly and hurtling. Glinting as it plunges. Instantly hypnotic. There’s a boomerangy whoosh-whoosh.Continue reading “Welcome, Lee Dickinson!”

‘We’re all Works In Progess,’ I found myself writing the other day. Another cliché/truth/ugh. And as I’m forever banging on about my fascination with stories-within-stories, and the state of my notebooks, I wondered ‘What do other writer’s WIPs look like?’ And then: ‘As my novels are raw and introspective, and have the recurring theme ofContinue reading “(Chaos) (Theory)?”

Glasshouse is out! Thank you if you have read it, bought it in any form, reviewed it, or rated it! Its title works literally and metaphorically, so let’s play with that for a bit. Glasshouses – or greenhouses if you prefer – are like my writing career. Or vice versa. I put special things inContinue reading “Glass Houses”

Epiphanies tend to come to me when I’m in the shower and haven’t got a pen. Which is what happened on Valentine’s Day, but what with it being #WorldBookDay today, and the imminent release of Glasshouse, it’s hit me again. It struck me as funny that I should write about everything being in the mind,Continue reading “Stuff and Things”

I’ve written about my fascination with the inextricability of stories many times, and my debut novel, The (D)Evolution of Us, was an exercise in conveying it. That, and the Butterfly Effect. I’ve mentioned Glasshouse a few times, too, and the fact that it is the next novel in the series. Well, Glasshouse will be publishedContinue reading “Sssh – it’s a Valentine’s Day Secret…”

It’s bizarre, given that we’re in lockdown, but I seem to have less time than ever. Now that I have no playgroups to go to with my son, now we can’t go to the beach, see our friends and relations, or even go to the park up the road to go on the swings forContinue reading “My Raven”