I am very lucky to be able to offer you a portrait by Pierre at the bargain price of £350 - an offer in support of Salt Lick that is two hundred pounds cheaper than Pierre's regular commission price. Here is a little bit more about Pierre and his work. Pierre and I were friends... Continue Reading →
This is how Salt Lick opens - somewhere on the Suffolk coast close to where much of the book is set, in a time between now and then. Water trickles through gullies in the brick, loosening bonds that held the house together for nearly three hundred years. Rain and sea meet in the crooks,... Continue Reading →
I can't deny that starting a second crowdfunding campaign is daunting. But it's also exciting. I am really happy with Salt Lick and hope it may appeal to a range of readers. I thought I might share with you where it came from, some of what made me write it. The first inkling of the... Continue Reading →
I have two short stories that I am giving away to anyone who signs up for my newsletter. The first is called Love Birds, and is about a gentleman who collects shoes. The second, Different Corner, is about finding refuge and new worlds in the library. The newsletter is fairly sporadic, and comes with great... Continue Reading →
My daughter Lilian is a dancer. She’s curious about the human soul, insightful and intelligent. But she doesn’t read books. It’s a bit heartbreaking, and believe me, is not for want of me being encouraging/nagging/moderately unhinged about it. She is mildly dyslexic, primarily affecting the way she is able to deal with large blocks of... Continue Reading →
(That time I invited Sleep, Thomas Mann, Lucy Ellmann and John Milton to the same blog post and we all hung out. Heaven.) When starting my current book Salt Lick, the inclusion of a chorus was one of the first decisions I made, though it took a while to learn that it would come from... Continue Reading →
Book 1, Ducks, Newburyport, Lucy Ellmann Before I got up I read pages 803 - 856 of Ducks, Newburyport. This is such a wonderful book. A place to be both lost and adrift in sweet recognition. I felt so much for teenager Stacy, her clumsy, scary courage, her sullen and awkward groping for her adult... Continue Reading →
My hand writing is getting worse. But no matter. I am doing more of it. Just as I came to realise that the bump on the side of the second knuckle of my right middle finger, the biro bump, earned through tedious hours of school essay writing and solipsistic teen-journal keeping, has all but gone,... Continue Reading →
New marketing strategies for old With drawings done by mouse as my tablet and stylus is not working. An enjoyably (for me) crude way of working! I am in the process of developing a radical new book marketing strategy. It’s so radical it doesn’t involve any book marketing at all. It goes something like this: ... Continue Reading →
Last Thursday I was lucky enough to take part in the annual Write Stuff competition at London Book Fair. I was one of six unrepresented authors pitching our novels to a panel of five literary agents. I am really pleased to say that I won. As summarising and blurbing and elevator-pitching is one of the... Continue Reading →
Lulu Allison, contemporary fiction author 