I can pinpoint the exact moment my mother stopped reading my second novel, because the bookmark still reposes at the end of the chapter...

It's occurred to me that only after I’ve finished a novel can I confidently say that I know how to write a novel. And then I forget. In...

Today I bought myself a new notebook. There’s something intimidating and sublime about bound, blank pages. The world of possibilities....

From time to time, I edit other people’s fiction. Fellow writers send me passages of a work-in-progress and it’s obvious to me what the...

‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’ So claimed British writer Cyril Connolly, these days remembered...

There’s really not much I want to say about 2020. There’s not much I need to say about it. It has been, without doubt, the worst year I...

I was in Tesco yesterday (that’s an inauspicious start, but bear with me), and found myself wandering, as I so often do when in need of...

You may have noticed the election in the United States. It’s been going on for roughly a decade now, and still shows no sign of abating....

- or How to Survive the Dreaded Author Feedback Paralysis “You know that foreign correspondent's ruse: in the days when you had your...

Having spent a large part of the summer writing and decorating, I couldn’t help but see parallels between the two. Preparing the Room -...

Where Authors Do Their Thing This blog entry is a little different. I’m writing it at thirty three thousand feet, and I’m drunk. I don’t...

*According to me Before we start, because you probably won’t still be reading by the time I get to the end, I’d like to point out that...

Probably. In objective terms, any list such as this one is nonsense. What I really mean to say is My Favourite Ten Books, or Ones That...

Graham Greene, in Ways of Escape, writes candidly about his early literary failures. His first published novel, The Man Within, was ‘the...

The world is burning and humanity repeatedly learns bugger all from the lessons of history, so I figure what we really need right now is...

Lying to Ourselves and Petitioning the Absent - Whatever Happened to the Epistolary Novel? Rewind to 2007 and picture an American woman,...

I’m going to whisper this because what I’m about to announce is by no means a fashionable opinion. I’ve been quite enjoying this...

I have decided to go ahead and embrace history with both hands and join the world of blogging. This may or may not be a terrible idea. My...