My Blog
My Summer Schools
Plot, structure and pace: three abstract, immovable pillars of the realistic novel. How do you get them right? I’ve spent the summer in various online schools, looking for some answers. In his course The Four Elements of Editing...
Lines of Resistance: Janine and Colette
The stories of Janine and Colette are real histories, touched by the myths that have gathered around the resistance over the past eighty or so years but based on actual experience and events. One of these women, Janine de Greef, died on 7 November 2020, aged 95. The...
Spell Songs, Heartwood and Nature Notes
Spell Songs is a development from The Lost Words, produced by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris in 2017. (www.thelostwords.org) The Lost Words took twenty common names for twenty common species of plant and creature, chosen because the authors felt they were on the...
The art of survival – the ébénos of Paris
One publisher commenting on my manuscript observed that its title - Heartwood - was potentially misleading, suggesting a romantic love story. Heartwood is a story of love - and loss - but it is essentially a story of survival. Heartwood itself is the very...