Category Archives: Fiction

‘Hull, Nadin!’

Posted on December 3, 2019 by

Let us set aside for a moment that the University of Hull’s barrel of ‘notable alumni’ was small to start with, and is now very much scraped, and appreciate that I have wanted to do this for more years than … Continue reading →

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And another one…

Posted on November 26, 2019 by

2020 is a busy book year for me, but this one is a biggie. Second adult novel, set in Essex in 1981 and featuring Grifter bikes, Charles and Di, Panda Pops, a Welsh Elvis impersonator, a fake Marc Bolan, and … Continue reading →

Posted in 1970s, 1980s, creative writing, Fiction, love, Uncategorized, women's fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Head in all the books

Posted on June 26, 2019 by

I read a lot. A LOT. About sixty so far this year though it feels more like eleventy billion. Some for work, some for pleasure, some for both.  Some I’ve put down after two pages because CLUNKY. Some because the … Continue reading →

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My BAFTA-Winning Boy

Posted on November 26, 2018 by

This is how it started. A small boy I’d glimpsed on a street in Peckham, his sleeping bag on his back like a nylon snail. From that came pages of notes about a boy called Tom, who eventually turned into … Continue reading →

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Here’s One I Made Earlier

Posted on November 4, 2018 by

As a child, I was a ‘keener’. A ‘swot’. A ‘geek’. Way before geeks were chic or had rows with nerds over which was which. And yet my ambition – to somehow be Queen of Facts, and win many spectacular … Continue reading →

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(Pigeon) seeds of a story

Posted on July 12, 2018 by

It began with a name, as it so often does for me: The Audacious Birdy Jones. But who she was, what she looked like, what her story was were blurry and inchoate, still lost somewhere in the soup of story … Continue reading →

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Birdy Jones is all alone

Posted on May 26, 2018 by

Of all the questions I get asked on school visits, there are several perennials: How old are you, Miss? How much do you earn, Miss? Do you know JK Rowling / Jacqueline Wilson / David Walliams / any other much … Continue reading →

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