Newsletter

Hi Everyone, AI? Artificial intelligence? Did I just put you to sleep? I could almost put myself to sleep, except for my very real, recent AI shopping experience. Where to begin? Almost ten years ago, when fellow mums were preparing their sons for entry into senior schools, one mum was beside herself about AI, or at least her […]

Hi Everyone, I was recently asked to provide an essay on why I wrote my new historical novel, The Audubon Affair, for a literary prize entry. What follows is a shortened version. Yes, the manuscript is out, entered for two literary prizes and finding its way into the hands of interested agents/publishers. If you have

Hi Everyone, As I wrote in my last blog, while Zooming with a friend some 3,450 miles away, I had an epiphany that took me back to childhood and Jane Jetson’s videophone, but a less obvious insight also crept in. As I sat, getting comfortable in front of my self-adjusting camera, I had to take

Hi Everyone, 2026! That is not the year I had in mind, not even the decade. What I had in mind was 2062, the projected year in which the Jetsons lived. Ah! Who are the Jetsons, you ask? The Jetsons, if you do not recall (and why should you?), are a cartoon Space Age family

Hi Everyone, Happy Christmas, almost! That magical, mystical, happy—oh yes—night divine! Well, many things come at this special time, and yes, it is associated with gifts, some even Great Ones, when ‘the dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more’. So in this final month of 2025, I offer you a small

Hi Everyone, Yes, it’s November and it’s Thanksgiving, a traditional time for gratitude and celebrating your harvest, whatever that may be—corn, barley, the completion of a 120,000 word manuscript of a new novel, or a 17.76% cumulative rate of return on your portfolio, even if NASDAQ and the S&P500 did better! The point, obviously, is

Hi Everyone, Perfect. Google’s English dictionary provided by Oxford Languages defines the first instance of the adjective ‘perfect’ as ‘having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, characteristics; as good as it is possible to be’. Well, that’s a tricky one for me as I have always been told that perfection is out of reach,

Hi Everyone, In the last few months I have been reading The Women, a vibrant novel by Kristin Hannah. I admire Kristin’s writing; I find her novels commercial, engaging and sincere, always teasing out a woman’s story that resonates, from whatever tale, whatever decade! I wasn’t sure about The Women to start with, though; not

Hi Everyone, Deadheading? When I bought my home, I inherited a lovely garden—roses, hollyhocks, lavender, ivy—forty years of growth. As I took possession in a November, I wasn’t truly aware of what might arise from that dark tangled mess of wet leaves, vines, grasses and topiary trees. Although saying that, I had had a peek

Hi Everyone, Okay, so The Fair Incognito, my work-in-progress, is done – or better said, “I’m done.” I may or may not have met my aspiration. I am told the finish line when writing a novel is a bit like delivering a baby: she’s out and she’s not going back to perfect anything. Yet, in