Our writing group is expecting a guest this week: local author and poet Lucy English. I confess I hadn’t read anything by Lucy until this week when I scuttled down to our local library just in time to pick up a copy of Our Dancing Days. This is a short but satisfying read set in … Continue reading Dancing Days
Having heard last week that I had missed the shortlist for the Virginia Prize, the news I had made the longlist (which came a few days later) didn’t seem a lot to cheer about. But maybe it was just the weather that was making me glum. This is the only competition I have entered with … Continue reading Virginia Prize Longlist
For sheer theatre there’s nothing like a courtroom drama. I was first hooked way back in the sixties when Perry Mason got his man every Sunday night without fail, always with the help of crucial new evidence provided at the last minute by side-kick Paul Drake. I don’t think I understood half of it, but was entranced by the formulaic language … Continue reading Criminal Justice 2
Had a sobering thought yesterday when I heard mail delivery (i.e. by the postman) being described as a ‘sunset industry’. Hang on, I thought, as a novelist whose primary aspiration is to get into print, am I also part of a sunset medium, soon to be supplanted by e-books, downloads or just one big blogosphere? It’s not … Continue reading Sunrise, sunset
A trip to York has been an excellent excuse to neglect Authonomy where The Water’s Edge is now sinking down the rankings. And if I am ever to get on with my rewrite project I’m afraid that sink it must. Even maintaining its current position requires too much effort in finding and swapping reads. But I … Continue reading Numbers Game
Ali Bacon, Author 