“What I love most is the idea that leaving London to go into the countryside seems like stepping beyond the barriers, into this quasi-dangerous world.” - Tom Ward. Tom Ward is the author of The Lion and the Unicorn, one of the Unbound projects I was delighted to support with a pledge. Tom noticed that... Continue Reading →
Salt Lick – opening pages
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 →
Salt Lick is on the starting blocks
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 →
All For Nothing by Walter Kempowski
As I read this, now and then I thought of the strange insular world of Gormenghast, as though it had been dialled down into faded, if odd, normality. This isn't a very accurate description of the book, but the eccentricity of an insular, aristocratic existence, built on strange ritual and isolation is in both. All... Continue Reading →
Four Questions on Reading and Writing
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 →
Ducks, Drones and Doctor Faustus
(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 →
#MyDayInBooks – 13/08/19 in six books
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 →
Down With Striving (I’m heading upstream)
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 →
See What I See?
Poetry, Visual Art and the Good Intentions of a New Year January and February feel like the lowest ebb of the year and thus the worst time to engage with a new project. It is a time for sloping about, perhaps ravelling in the tail ends of the old year. The part of the... Continue Reading →
#MyDayInBooks Part 2
23/10/18 in seven books Book 1 Today I ordered a copy of Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo. The Emperor’s Babe by the same author is in my top ten - beautiful, compelling, the language is a magnificent dream, and Zuleika is one of the best characters I know. Lover Man is more recent. I also... Continue Reading →
