Connectedness
I may have mentioned it before, but once I had a vivid dream in which every single person I’d ever known was taking part in a football match while riding bicycles. My overriding (pardon the pun) subconscious thought was not ‘How can you play football while riding a bicycle?’ but ‘Oh no! How can I…
Notebooks – The Conundrum
I recently read an article by Jason McBride about the importance, and indeed joy, of keeping ‘ugly notebooks’. If you want to read it, here’s the link. I have to say that I find Jason’s notebooks anything but ugly, which is more than can be said for mine, but that’s because I use mine in…
An Interview with Rose Henderson
This is from an online challenge imagining your characters being interviewed by a self-absorbed, somewhat sexist, not especially bright media person called Vic. I thought I’d share this one – an interview with Rose, the main character in The Incomer. It’s not part of the book, but may give you a bit of an insight…
Forever Autumn
September Gone are the aromas of hot earth and barbecues, lollipop-coloured clothes, other people’s lives audible through open doors and windows, sunshine warming bare legs, iced drinks sweet and herby. As Summer tips into Autumn, there’s the scent of apples; hedgerows bejewelled with garnet and obsidian and ruby berries; the skip-whine-trudge of children going to…
Revisiting
Last week I met a friend in the town where we first met as students. Apart from attending an open day with my children once, I hadn’t returned in decades. Walking up from the station, I expected to be filled with hiraeth, an untranslatable Welsh word which, like the Portuguese Saudade, broadly means a kind…
Stirring
After breakfast, I sit with my tea next to an old fireplace in a renovated ancient cottage. The small log burner under the chimney is redundant on a summer day. Once, I muse, there would have been an open fire for heating and cooking. A kettle and pot would have hung from trammel hooks over…
A Tale of Tea & Dragons – Out Now – The Background
A few years ago, a scene popped into my mind and I wrote it down. This happens quite a lot, and often these ‘snippets’ are just mental exercises which will never turn into anything. But this one was different. In those five hundred words, a young woman with magical ability who’s suffering from unrequited love…
A Glimpse into Inspiration?
This was recorded a few weeks ago on a very hot day and I arrived flustered thinking I was late when in fact I was early! Once I calmed down though, this was a great interview. I had little prior knowledge of the questions, so this is all from the heart (and mind) and I…
It’s All on the Board
Do you like or loathe board games? We love them. In our house, games come out for family get togethers, or when we have friends staying. It’s something we all (with the possible exception of my father-in-law) look forward to. Yes, my adult children play video games too, but when they’re home, they even bring…
Ginger
One cold winter afternoon, I went to get some coal for the boiler after school and discovered something unexpected. It wasn’t the first time I’d found something odd when getting coal. Our house was at the top of a hill and its back garden and the garage and the large coal bunker were below it…
Busy Doing Nothing?
What do you do when you have unexpected free time? As a child, I wandered about in nature. I daydreamed and I wrote stories and poems. I read and read and read. I crafted things of little use and nil longevity. I’m not sure when this changed, but motherhood didn’t help. All of a sudden…
Obstacle
‘Don’t touch it!’ says Norindis. ‘It’s manmade.’ We all look at the rock blocking the crossroads. Thrust into its centre is a large sword, its blade engraved in some unknown script. ‘How do you know it’s manmade?’ I say. ‘Maybe some other otherworld being did it.’ ‘An elf like us would have put that sword…
Barnet Fair (1)
When I was a teenager agonising over my hair, my paternal grandmother told me about her brother cutting hers when she was around the same age At the time of this conversation my own hair was long, straight and mousy-brown. In theory it had been in fashion for a while (although it would have been…
Safe and Secure
Imagine the town as a circle dissected roughly south east to north west by a road which came up from the cathedral city eight miles south. It snaked briefly past Tudor, Georgian and Victorian houses a Norman church, and Edwardian ones before eventually heading out into the wilds of the next county. On the eastern…
Apples, Pears and Triangles
When my sister and I were teenagers, our parents went away for the weekend leaving us to our own devices. Is this a tale of wild parties? Nope. We were far too boring. Instead, we started a two day super low calorie diet. Started. The first meal was a raw egg beaten into orange juice.…
Shelf Life
The other day when I needed rice wine vinegar for a recipe, I discovered the use by date of ours had expired seven years ago. For the record, we probably hadn’t used it 2018, but it did prove that we need a cupboard audit. No one has ever accused me of being a tidy person,…
What’s The Incomer All About?
The local women’s guild threatens to uncover what Rose is hiding. Who can she trust? Is it Sky who fears the guild? Or Rob who hates it? As odd becomes sinister, Rose begins to wonder: does the Guild want them to leave… or to die? As a contemporary fantasy, ‘The Incomer’ may seem like a…
Sanctuary in Art?
I’ve often said that messing with art helps me de-stress and since perhaps you can tell from my previous blog post that the last few months have been stressful, you might wonder if I’ve been following my own advice? The answer is: ish. Every year Liz Hedgecock and I do a challenge for Lent, and…
All Change Please
This is a virtual hug for anyone who’s been in a state of utter overwhelm. And it’s an apology in the unlikely event that anyone out there has missed my random ramblings. I had heaps of things I intended to blog about after I posted the last on 4th November 2024. Then my mother was…
The Inker
Despite any number of other things competing for my attention in October, I decided to Inktober again. In case you don’t know, this is a challenge to draw something everyday in October using ink and following a prompt set up by Inktober on Instagram. There was also a suggestion of which might be coloured rather…
Risk
My first introduction to the horror which was Public Information Films was when I was aged between five and six. One day, the police brought an Alsatian police dog to school. I was (and still am to some extent) scared of dogs, but this one was beautiful. The policemen seemed huge. They told us to…
Gears Looking at You
This blog is dedicated to my great friend Val Portelli who, for reasons beyond her control, has sadly had to relinquish her faithful car. In sympathy, I’m looking back to some of the more memorable vehicles in my life and hoping to raise a smile on her face. (Just for the record before I continue,…
Wandering in Ink
This month I’m taking part in Inktober again, and the prompts all relate to travelling. My brain is going off piste as usual, but even so, it’s brought back many forgotten memories, only one of which, so far, has got into a sketch. Before they had children, my parents were keen hikers. They marched out…
Of Corset’s Fun
I was a little girl who felt as if she’d been born into the wrong era. This particularly applied to clothes. I longed for elegant colours, long, flouncy skirts, bodices, frilled petticoats and lacy gloves. I just knew that wearing them, I could swish down a sweeping staircase. (Important note – I wanted to live…
Home is Where …
How do you define ‘home’? Some sixteen years after I left the family home to create my own, my parents moved to a bungalow in another village. I never lived there, but when I visited, I’d say something like ‘I’m going home to Mum and Dad’ because somehow they themselves were synonymous with the concept…
Triggers – to Warn or not to Warn – Views Welcome
Trigger warnings in books, films and TV are contentious. I’m often irritated when I’m watching TV after 9.30pm and a sombre announcement warns me about what might offend or upset me in the programme I’m about to watch. I’ve usually enough knowledge of what I’m about to see to anticipate it, and if I didn’t…
How, What, When – Techniques
I’m often asked four things: 1. How long does it take to write a book? 2. How do Liz and I co-write without killing each other? 3. Re historical mysteries, does research come before plot or vice versa? 4. When do I find time to write? The simple answers are: 1. The first draft of a 50,000 word book written with…
Mirror Selves
In the last few months, life has been busy, hence getting out of the habit of blogging. I’ve been working on A Justified Death (Margaret Demeray 5), and with Liz on Death in a Dinner Jacket (Booker and Fitch book 6). Both are now available for pre-order. That’s on top of a day job which…
Writing In The Wild
‘The girl stared at Jenny with cold blue eyes and…’ ‘Dear Karen, I don’t like…’ ‘a shape so dark and stealthy…’ ‘something moves in the still …’ ‘tympanist hits his drums with two sticks so…’ ‘Leçon onze – un lapin = …’ ‘Heat of room 20°, heat of ice 0°’ These are on the back…
Tales of a Country(ish) Mouse
Although I was born in London, I’ve lived in small towns and villages since the age of eighteen months and consider myself a sort of country mouse. Of course, I’ll never be a ‘local’ since I don’t at least three generations of family in the graveyard. I have no idea therefore what it’s like to…
Yes But How Much Is True?
The other evening my husband went out cycling. Yes, it’s November. Yes it was dark. But he and his friends do this weekly after work whenever they can. At nine-thirty, it started to pour with rain as forecast. At ten p.m., just as he returned, the whole town had a power cut. I heard with…
It’ll Come To Me In A Minute
When I was young, when my maternal grandmother addressed me, she would often go through my sister’s name, our cousin’s, her own sisters’, her nephew’s and my mother’s, until she got to Paula. These days I do the same, swapping my son’s name for my husband’s (my excuse is that they start with the same…
Inktober – What’s The Story?
Am I alone in seeing stories everywhere? I can’t remember when I didn’t think ‘what’s their story?’, ‘what if X happened next?’, ‘why are they/is this/am I like this? What led them/it/me here?’ I dealt with long boring journeys by imagining the lives of the people we passed in the car, or what might be…
Best Served With Peacock
Still in a sort of limbo between writing projects, my plan for my three ‘free days’ last week (e.g. not doing the office job) was to: For one reason and another, I only managed number three, and my long suffering (his words not mine) husband has been playing guinea pig again. My first proper job…
Art For Calm’s Sake
At the moment, after finishing work (for the moment) on two books simultaneously (listed at the end), my Muse is tempting me from what I’d been planning to write next, towards writing a ‘contemporary’ novel set in an alternative world where there’s also magic and might just include A Novelty, in a slightly different format.…
A Novelty
Within the wrapping was an antique cigarette lighter. It was attractive: engraved, simple. But I didn’t smoke. ‘It’s a time machine,’ said Beth. She was eccentric, but she was my best friend. I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘It’s true,’ she insisted. ‘I found it in the Christmas market.’ Oh, a novelty present. I peered…
Permission To Play?
Being a bit behind, I’ve only just seen the new Barbie movie. This isn’t a review or critique as I’m still sort of processing what I think (although I found bits very funny and I bet they had a blast making it). It’s just a reflection on something raised by an article on it. My…
Murder At Midnight – Out Now!
It was a dark and stormy… All right, when Murder at Midnight starts, it’s just dark, but then it’s set in midwinter! Could that be why the local standing stones are a bit spooky? Or could it be something else? Murder At Midnight is now out, and if you’re in the northern hemisphere and want…
Tea and Trophies
According to an article, Dorset farm workers had eight meals a day: dewbit, breakfast, nuncheon, cruncheon, lunch, nammet, crammet and supper. Admittedly, a Dorset farm worker probably needs more calories than a Dorset writer/office worker, and I’m generally happy with a mere three meals a day, but even so, I really want to know what…
Author Interview with Chantelle Atkins
Welcome to an interview with author Chantelle Atkins and news about her latest book. Chantelle has just released the first in a brand new young adult post-apocalyptic series ‘The Day The Earth Turned book 1: Summer’. Here’s the blurb: The adults are all dead. Society has collapsed. Two groups of teenagers emerge on either side…
When Is A Marble…
When is a marble not a marble? You may have realised that I’m a bit of a hoarder. Whether this is by nature or nurture I don’t know. My husband is not much better, although in his case, he may have caught it from me. In the last few years, we have become a good…
Death On Opening Night – Out Today!
Fi and Jade are back! And this time, it’s theatrical. A small town theatre with big ideas, a faded star, ambitious amateurs. Nothing can go wrong – can it? Death On Opening Night is out today and if you read it, you’ll find out why I mentioned in my last post that Liz and I…
Out Of The Loop
It may be no surprise to some, that at school I was considered a bit of a weirdo. This was partly because I was good at the ‘wrong’ things. If I’d been good at sport, I might have been OK. I tried, I really did. But my first memory of doing anything competitive was the…
Loser Of The Keys
What follows is a tale of woe with a hint of mystery. To begin with, the woe. Current affairs being what they are, this is very small beer, but all the same, I’m sure at least one of you will sympathise. One day in February, I charged up my MacBook, then went to make it…
Murder for Beginners – where’s the inspiration?
When my daughter was born, we thought of calling her Sabrina. At the time, we lived in Gloucestershire, and I worked in a building that looked down onto the canal basin off the River Severn. Sabrina, in case you don’t know, was the name of the goddess of the Severn. Well, among other reasons, at…
Say When
I’ve just undertaken the annual calendar ritual. The old calendars are in the recycling and the new ones are ready for action. Though the concept of new year (and its date) is a human/cultural construct, there’s always the hope that like shedding a skin, as we say goodbye to the old and hello to the…
The Other Type of Christmas
And then there was the year when Christmas went wrong. In my part of the world and in my family, Christmas involves a house decorated with bright colours. It’s a time of secrets and excitement as presents are bought or made and then hidden; for the wider family to get together, exchange gifts, play boardgames,…
Big Tree, Little Boxes
When we decorate the Christmas tree this year (some time this week), there will be something missing. Several things in fact. When my son started primary school aged four, there was a fundraising fair towards the end of the Christmas term, which included a stall selling decorations. I bought two for the children: each with…
One Step At A Time
Several years ago, my then line manager sent me on an assertiveness course for female managers. I’d recently just taken on a role which involved liaising with outside agencies. I actually very much enjoyed that part of the job but my need for assertiveness was/is perhaps in other areas. Moreover, I appreciated the intent, as…
Hear All About It
My first recollection of stories on audio was listening to my father’s recordings of The Goon Show via reel-to-reel tape. Incomprehensible as the humour was to a three year old, it was hard not to enjoy songs called I’m Walking Backwards to Christmas and The Ying Tong Song. Then there were records with a story…
Apple Time in the Historical Experiment Kitchen
It’s apple season and also, after ten days of being banned from cooking due to having covid, time for me to do some cooking ‘archaeology’! I have a project in hand, adapting the sort of recipes my characters might eat, into something that’s easy to cook in a modern kitchen with modern ingredients, and mindful…
Postcard Whisperers
When I was a teenager, in the days before mobile phones (or at least before anyone normal had one) and emails and social media, I started filling a postcard album. To start with, I added postcards from schoolfriends, relations and my penfriend in Germany, who sent them from holidays taken in places as exotically distant…
Why Choose A Woman?
In March I was involved in a literary festival, both as an organiser and as a contributor. One of the things I did was to talk about suspense fiction with Helen Matthews and Katharine Johnson. At the end, we opened the floor to the audience. Here are some of the questions, and some of the answers…
Equinox
I was the chieftain in the settlement then. A killing winter it had been and a grasping one, reaching with frost crackling fingers to catch the young ones and the old ones and freeze the yet unknown ones in the womb. Not a child under three years old survived that winter. And that winter dragged…
Of Chopsticks, Tramps and Bandages
‘Girls must be partners and comrades rather than dolls.’ ‘Their pork is excellent… but they do not find it necessary to burn the house down for each joint.’ ‘The well-dressed man has an unpleasant shock in store for him.’ ‘Returning from the city, they discovered the house lit up and a man lying in bed.’…
A Hint of Spices Past
Ingredients: a good book, time, tasty food. Method: Combine as desired. Try to keep grease spots and crumbs off the book. VariatIon: Ingredients: A historical recipe, unfamiliar ingredients, time, and a mixing bowl. Method: Follow recipes wondering if they’ll work. Eat the result whatever it turns out like. Don’t worry too much about crumbs and…
Jobs For The Girls
Aged five, I was asked to draw what I wanted to be when I grew up. I drew a woman in a headscarf wielding a broom and smiling. A happy housewife. What was I thinking? I never wanted to be a housewife. I actually wanted to be a secretary, but couldn’t draw one because I…
The Making of ‘Weird and Peculiar Tales.’
The true story behind the slightly less than true stories in ‘Weird & Peculiar Tales’!
Bones, Stones and Long, Long Roots
Today, my husband and I dug up two old bones. One was definitely some sort of leg joint, the other, which had snapped, was harder to distinguish. ‘I assume they’re not human,’ I said, dubiously. For the record, we weren’t on an archaeological dig, but clearing a part of the garden which was once thought…
Foreshadows
I live in an area where there were a lot of Roman roads, many of which are below more modern roads. One of them, not far from where I live joins another road near an old hill fort, which Roman invaders occupied for a while (presumably after turfing the locals out) before they built something…
This? Or That? What do I prefer in fiction as reader and writer?
I recently saw one of those memes on a Facebook page where you had to choose between This or That for your mystery reading preferences. I’ve never been too good at choices. When I was doing A level languages, if I was under pressure and had two options for a translation, I invariably chose the…
New Beginnings Everywhere
The sparrows have returned to our garden from wherever they shelter over the winter. From what started as four sweet little birdies a few years ago, a small army of spadgers now congregates each morning on one of the trees to eye up our house. They’re clearly ready to start roosting again which involves a…
Once More With Feeling
Somehow it’s New Year again. My daughter has gone back to university and all the Christmas food has been eaten except a few chocolates and enough cheese to make macaroni cheese for fifty (and the Christmas pudding which we’ll have tomorrow). I stopped doing a ‘round robin’ Christmas letters a long time ago, around about…
Author Interview with Anna M Holmes
Hi Anna – Welcome to my website. Please tell us a little more about yourself and your books? I’m a visual writer, working on big canvases in different genres. My stories are driven by plot and character. Originally from New Zealand I live in the U.K. with my Dutch partner. Dance, yoga, and writing are…
Bonfire Night
(An extract from The Cluttering Discombobulator) 1974 November – I remember And then there was the time Dad threw a firework party. In those days and where we lived, Hallowe’en wasn’t much of a thing. If you wanted sweets pretty much for nothing, you waited till Christmas when you could go carol singing or, on…
What I Did On My Holidays
Ah – the writing topic for the start of the Autumn term. Did it fill you with dread? There were the children who’d gone something amazing (like go to Disneyland), children like us who’d gone to stay with relations or had a camping holiday and the children who’d been unable to go away at all.…
Where to Begin?
This year, it feels like I have mostly been writing the sequel to The Wrong Sort To Die. When I started writing, I never thought I’d write a series. But here I am, looking to release book two in the third series I’ve written or co-written. Writing a sequel is quite different to writing the…
A Novel Idea
Here’s a confession about a time when ‘the story’ was more important than common sense, logic or, in fact, the environment. Sometimes I’m asked whether I have a preference in terms of what era I read about in historical fiction and whether it reflects on the eras I write about. It’s hard to answer either.…
Father’s Day with Roderick
Father’s Day is tricky for many. Some have lost fathers, some never knew their fathers, some wish they’d never known their fathers. I was fortunate to have a father whom I loved very much and who loved me. That’s not to say we always got on or always understood each other. We were in some…
The Underdog
Nancy sat back in her seat. As the music soared, she smiled. There had been nothing else she could have done. She had got her revenge. *** The years might never have passed. The tall arrogant woman marched into the hall with her entourage, finding fault with everything from the decor to the spotlighting and…
What’s Going On?
‘Where now?’ said the taxi driver. ‘I’m not sure,’ said Margaret. ‘What’s happening?’ whispered Nellie. ‘What’s going on?’ It’s a good question. After fourteen months in some form of lockdown, things are changing. Within a couple of days, I’ve gone from not having any face-to-face ‘dates’ in my calendar to adding five meet-ups during July…
Reactions
This time last year, existing in a limbo between a breast cancer diagnosis and a lumpectomy, I decided to deep-clean my kitchen cupboards. This is not normal behaviour. Writers will tell you that they’ll frequently do anything rather than put pen to paper and I’m no different. But in my case procrastination doesn’t usually involve…
Dinner for Two at Margaret’s
It’s the evening of a cold February day in 1911. Dr Margaret Demeray is returning to her Bayswater flat after a long day in a central London hospital. Meanwhile, Fox is leaving the north London hotel where he lives to join her for dinner. *** Fox feels nicely anonymous in this hotel. It was modernised…
Archer
The sky had lightened but the sun had not yet risen. I’d been awake all night, pacing, pacing. So while it was still not yet light, I walked from my house and out of town and up the hill fort. Perhaps in that ancient place when the sun rose, my world would make sense again.…
Something and Nothing
My son and I were discussing star signs the other day. Apparently I’m supposed to be good at organisation while my dislikes include absolutely everything at some point or other. We both laughed at the latter as it’s unfortunately quite true (although not necessarily for very long) but when he raised doubts about the former,…
Sisters, Sisters (chatting with the Demerays)
My own sister was born when I was three and a half. My delight wore off when I realised she was getting more attention than I was. She had dark brown hair and big brown soulful eyes. I was mousy and sulky looking. She seemed good at making friends, I was rubbish at it. She,…
Heart of Quartz
Last Monday I ‘attended’ the funeral of a lovely person who was younger than I am, who died from secondary breast cancer. She was always adamant that this shouldn’t be described as a battle nor her as brave, so I won’t. However, typing these words alone makes me fill up. She was a number of…
Viewscapes
They say that eyes are the windows of the soul, but I’m not convinced. If we could look into someone’s eyes and gauge exactly what sort of person was behind them, the world would be a much happier place. We’d immediately see the kind heart or the cruel one. We’d know whether it was wise…
Rude Words and Literature
We had a number of family words which were often completely baffling to outsiders. This was sometimes because of where we lived and sometimes because they’d been made up – usually by my father. The most embarrassing of these was ‘tuppence’ which was the family euphemism for faeces. The word ‘poo’ was considered rude by…
Pests
Bertram smirked as he dropped his handful of dirt onto Aunt Hepzibah’s coffin. Daft old biddy. No sense of humour. Giving him a thrashing just for dropping spiders down her back while she snoozed. What else was he supposed to do on childhood duty visits? If she hadn’t been so bad tempered, maybe he wouldn’t…
Imaginary Friends?
Did you ever have an imaginary friend? This question was posed on a Facebook group recently. Some said they’d had several, some had had none. Some hadn’t, but their children or siblings had. Some had ones who when they explained them to adults appeared identical to dead relations the child hadn’t actually known, which is…
An Interview with Val Portelli about her new genre busting book Alderslay
Hi Val, your new book ‘Alderslay’ has just been published. What’s it all about? Hi Paula, Thanks for having me as your guest. The book is about a young woman looking for her first home to share with her fiancé, a dog, a vineyard, an old house in need of renovation, family history and some…
Choose to Challenge
‘Maude and I are going to Switzerland for 19th March while you’re on your mission,’ said Margaret. ‘Really?’ said Fox. ‘Is this to do with International Women’s Day? Why Switzerland?’ Margaret shrugged. ‘I’ve never been there and they’re not doing it in Britain.’ ‘I might come with you before heading over the border,’ said Fox. …
Author Interview with J.D. Hughes
Welcome to my website – can you tell us something about yourself? My favourite authors are: Colleen Hoover, L.J. Shen, Vi Keeland, Sylvia Day, E.L. James, Nora Roberts, Linda Fausnet, T.M. Frazier, Melanie Harlow. And my favourite books are: My all-time favourite book has to be Verity by Colleen Hoover. It has a romance element,…
Byways, Rabbit Holes and Wrong (or maybe Right) Turns
Given the reading habits I formed as a child, it’s not too surprising I ended up writing historical mysteries, but I hadn’t really thought about the research required. Now I have an internet trail that includes purchasing cookbooks and books on poison, digging for mindfulness techniques and also whether the physical appearance of a murder…
Hearts and Flowers
Well it’s Valentine’s Day 2021. Where I am, it’s very cold, raining, we’re in lockdown and everything’s closed, so there’s a limit to how easy it is to be romantic, especially when you’re me. Usually, my husband cooks us a nice meal which we eat à deux. This year, we have two other adults in…
Chopsing – Video Interview
Some people describe me as talkative, others as reserved. When I was a child, elderly female relations seemed unable to decide if I should talk or hold my tongue. I was either told to stop whispering and speak so that people could hear me or told that children should be seen and not heard. Teachers…
What Three Things?
There are several ways to develop characters, but this is one I’ve heard from several writers. It was author Chantelle Atkins who encouraged me to write it down. The idea is to answer the following: What three things does the character want? What three things does the character fear? What three things are stopping them…
Resolving Not To Resolve
At a work meeting via Teams on 31st December, a colleague asked who had achieved their 2020 resolutions. While there was the usual mumbling about getting fit and losing weight, most people felt just getting from January to December in 2020 had been enough of a challenge and had long since forgotten what they’d vowed…
Yo! Season’s Greetings – what’s your feast?
It’s December 21st, nearing the end of a year for which the Oxford English Dictionary extended its Word of the Year to include ‘several unprecented words of the year’. I’m sure if each of us had a £1/$1/€1/etc for each time we’d uttered one of them, we’d all be rich. Diwali and Hanukkah have not…
Author Interview with Sim Sansford
Hi Sim, welcome to my blog. Can you tell us something about yourself? I’m Sim and I make words into adventures. I was born and raised in the county town of Dorchester, Dorset, I began scribbling away stories on scraps of paper since before I can remember. I spent a lot of my childhood on…
By Any Other Name
Names hold power. People gain identity when they’re named. It may not be the identity they want, or in the case of foundlings or slaves bear any connection with their ancestry but it’s the one they’re given. In older times, the right birth-name might protect a baby from another realm and a ‘real’ name might…
Hallowe’en 2020 – Post Event Evaluation
‘Failed!’ shouted the new Head of Haunting, slapping a ghostly performance dashboard. ‘All you have to do was scare people witless. One night. Once a year. That’s it. We talked it through. We had a plan. But you failed.’ ‘We didn’t have a plan,’ muttered the Elf Queen. ‘You did.’ The Head of Haunting flicked…
Author Interview with Stephen Deutsch
Welcome to my website Stephen. Thanks for taking part in an author interview. Please tell us a little about yourself I’m Stephen Deutsch, novelist, composer and filmmaker. I was born in New York and moved to the UK in 1970, becoming a naturalised citizen in 1978. I was trained as a pianist and composer, spending…
Modesty
I’ve been thinking about modesty lately. Modesty is, of course, a human concept. The sparrows nesting in our eaves have not been modestly tweeting that they’re nice bird-next-door types, while worrying in case they’re showing too much down. No they haven’t. Instead, they’ve spent a warm, dry spring reproducing at least three times – usually…
In Two Minds
I was one of those weirdos at school who was good at both English and maths. I craved both pretty things and books. I liked to be girly and have adventures. I loathed wearing trousers but despite always wearing a skirt, I could climb trees, could go exploring and when necessary, could slap a trouser-wearing…
Bus-stop on a Rainy Day
The zip broke and Jake’s portfolio exploded just as some swine swerved to speed through the puddle near the bus queue. Rain had already leaked through the gaps and soaked into the cheap seams. Muddy, grimy road-water just added an extra patination to his paintings. The handles slipped as he struggled to hold the portfolio…
Fresh Fruit and Little Monkeys
When I was nine, I worked for perhaps three weekends in a zoo. It was a tiny South Welsh concern called Penscynor Bird Gardens (later Wildlife Park) and originally housed birds, monkeys, an aquarium and llamas. When I was fourteen or so, our school cross-country route ran through the llamas’ field and they used to…
Between
I exist in the impossible land of the folksong, the acre between foam and strand. Liminal space. Interstitial. I’m waiting on the foggy threshold between two months ago and next week. A nowhere place. They say one should seize each day, not worry about tomorrow or beyond tomorrow but I’m not good at these in-between…
Of Rags and Richness
I seem to have become infected with some sort of reverse-Midas touch which means pretty much everything I touch is breaking down. This includes the fridge-freezer, the oven door, the car (or at least a warning light has come on) and the laptop which has ‘lost’ its word processing system. And yesterday, when I was teaching…