Hello, and thank you for visiting my site. I hope that you'll return often and always find something of interest about my world and what inspires me to pick up a pen. (This is a figure of speech, unfortunately. My handwriting is terrible!) Here's what I've been up to recently...
A Celebratory Seasonal Reading
I was very pleased to have one of my stories chosen for inclusion at this event organised by the Friends of Harrogate Library (FOHL), not least because it gave me the opportunity to take a look round the newly refurbished premises. These are now of a very high standard and a real asset to the town.
Unsure of the procedure, I’d taken a copy of my story along but was agreeably surprised to find a team of readers (shown on the right of the photograph) waiting to entertain the audience. It was a rare treat to sit back and enjoy listening to someone else’s interpretation of my words and Harrogate Library’s Noelle McCreath (could a name have been more appropriate for a reading at this time of year?), seated in the middle of the trio, did them full justice – even the foreign phrases!
The interval refreshments, including my first mince pie this year, were delicious, the wine flowed freely and I was able to catch up with some friends I hadn’t seen for a while. All in all (although my story didn’t win this time round*), it was a very enjoyable evening.
*A slightly different version won a recent RWG competition. See http://www.riponwriters.co.uk/
Below is the press report on the evening:
7 December, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
Club Focus on Ripon Activity Project
As a long term volunteer for RAP, a social group for adults with learning and/or physical disabilities, I was very happy to write the article below for our local newspaper. The limitations of an A4 scanner have led to its being split into two.
16 November, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
Kind words from Deborah Moggach
I’m proud to have Deborah Moggach’s permission to pass on her kind words about one of the stories in my third collection. The author of the brilliant The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and many other best selling novels has emailed me to say that she enjoyed Vainglory hugely and felt ‘so much at home in it’. Like Debby’s earlier novel ‘Tulip Fever’, it was inspired by a 17th century Dutch masterpiece and is one of my favourites amongst all the many short stories that I’ve written.
The ‘genre paintings’ of contemporary domestic interiors by artists such as De Maes, De Hooch, Ter Borch and Vermeer are so detailed that ‘experts’ argue for hours about hidden messages, whilst fiction writers are free to let their imaginations run riot. Some of the happiest days of my youth were spent in Amsterdam and I thoroughly recommend a visit to the famous Rijksmuseum, now open once again after ten years of rebuilding, renovation and restoration.
Swings & Roundabouts is available from Amazon as a separate eBook or as part of an eBook or paperback omnibus edition of my three short story collections.
6 September, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
Everything comes to she who waits?
Well, not quite everything, but I was agreeably surprised today.
As those who’ve attended one of my workshops on ‘fillers’ and/or read my article in the December 2012 issue of Writing Magazine already know, I find these a useful way of supplementing my income during the dry spells that most writers experience.
One FAQ is how long to wait before assuming that a submission hasn’t hit the spot and offering it elsewhere. That’s a difficult one to answer, as witness the fact that the item above was sent off in February 2012 and appeared in the issue to hit the shops today. It’s lucky that I wasn’t desperate for the response to my query!
29 August, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
Nothing wrong with nostalgia!
Most areas of the country have their own ‘nostalgic magazines’ and Down Your Way has featured many of my articles over the last few years.
Woodhouse Moor Revisited was inspired by memories of the part of the great northern city in which I grew up. My family moved house several times but we were never far away from the former common once known as ‘the lungs of Leeds’. It was, you might say, our local park. Childhood picnics and games of ‘catch’ gave way to roller skating round the already disused bandstand, the occasional game of tennis – I was never any good at that – and watching the boyfriend of the day playing football with his friends. Across Woodhouse Lane (formerly the Leeds-Otley Turnpike) from the landscaped section lay the ‘Cinder Moor’, empty and desolate for most of the year but coming to life when Billy Smart’s Circus paid its annual visit and again at Easter and particularly in September when the ‘Feast’ moved in for a few days. As I wrote in the article, ‘the smell of diesel fumes mingled with fried onions always served to heighten the excitement’ and ‘it was all about whizzing round to the latest hit records and flirting with the tough looking young men in charge of the Waltzers’. Well, I did attend a rather sedate single sex grammar school!
In those days, I never gave a thought to the long history of Woodhouse Moor, but a few hours spent in Leeds Local Studies Library gave me plenty of facts to choose from. Famous visitors included Thomas Fairfax, whose troops assembled there in 1643 to capture Leeds from the Royalists, Queen Victoria and Emmeline Pankhurst. The Chartists met there in 1837 to form Leeds Working Men’s Association and both World Wars saw large parts of the Moor turned over to military use and allotments. During WW2, air raid shelters were also added, but morale was kept up by regular concerts on the bandstand and dances in a large marquee on the tennis courts.
It was on a grey and drizzly Sunday in March that I set off with a friend and her dog to take photographs for my article. I was saddened at first to find that some features I remembered had either disappeared or been vandalised. The paths were in sad need of repair, some of the signs were covered in graffiti and paint had been daubed onto the statue of Robert Peel at one entrance. On the other hand, the flower beds and bowling green were still carefully tended, the children’s playground was much more colourful, better equipped and certainly safer than in my day and cheerful youngsters of all shades were showing off their moves in the skate park. The crocuses were in full bloom on the grass verges on both sides of Woodhouse Lane and the Moscow State Circus was preparing to move on from the Cinder Moor to its next venue.
Resolving to return in the summer, when the Moor will have been taken over by picnicking families and students ‘relaxing from their studies’, we equipped ourselves with takeaway coffees and baklava from a little café on Hyde Park corner and hurried back to the warmth of our car.
23 August, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
Featured in Writing Magazine
Sally Jenkins’s article on independent e-publishing is in the September 2013 issue and I’m delighted to be one of her interviewees. The others are Neneh Gordon, Anne Harvey and Jackie Johnson.
Along with a great deal of practical advice, Sally has explored our reasons for jumping onto this ‘shiny new bandwagon’. My own are twofold. First of all, it’s an opportunity to offer to a wider readership a selection of short stories that have won competitions and/or already been published; secondly to showcase others not written to fit the requirements of mainstream publications.
As Sally points out, independent e-publishing is not a get-rich-quick scheme for most writers. However, knowing that my stories now have a much longer life span than was previously the case will do for the moment.
2 August, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
Also available in print!
I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve told me that they’d love to read my short story collections if only they were available in print. Well, here they are and all in one omnibus edition available from any Amazon website!
Readers who prefer to download the omnibus from Amazon as an eBook can also benefit, as this offers all three collections for the price of two.
28 July, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
Featured in the Yorkshire Post
N.B. My companions and I didn’t just have ‘a trip round’ the Russian capital in a double-decker. We bought the old bus for a very modest sum and drove from Manchester to Moscow via France, Belgium, West and East Germany and Poland. Our route home took us through parts of the Ukraine, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Six weeks on the road and plenty of food for thought!
5 July, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
‘Quartet’ by the Ripon Rowel Players
Reviewing a play is always a pleasurable assignment and I was happy to oblige one fine Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. Having missed the film, I went along to the Ripon Spa Hotel with no preconceptions and had a thoroughly enjoyable time of it. The seating in the ballroom was cabaret style with optional refreshments during the performance and between acts, all of which contributed to the convivial atmosphere.
My review has appeared in full today in the local press. If anyone connected with the performance is away and unable to get hold of a copy, please let me know.
20 June, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
E-book project now complete
At the start of 2013, I set myself the challenge to group some of my many short stories into themed collections and try them out as Amazon e-books. This wouldn’t have been accomplished without the technical expertise of my son Richard, to whom I’m eternally grateful. A compilation of all three books may follow and perhaps a print edition. Watch this space!
2 June, 2013 - Make the first comment on this story
Check Out My eBooks
