Newsletter

Hi Everyone, June? How can it be? I was trying to hold back April and then May rolled in, and of course the garden? Well, that just keeps rolling right along, regardless. Yes, it is bursting with all things green and a variety of roses (some unknown to me), as well as free-seeded flowers in […]

Hi Everyone, Doldrums. I’ve always liked that word. It felt to me like a special, maybe even mythical place, and apparently to some degree it is. Doldrums is a nautical term that refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get caught on windless waters. It is today more

Hi Everyone, Over twenty years ago, I adapted the Estonian novel The Czar’s Madman for the screen. That particular adaptation, sadly, has never been produced, despite my being told by the author’s then agent that it was his favourite adaptation. As I see the tragic events continue to unfold in Ukraine, I am even more convinced of

Hi Everyone Some authors say that all work should be kept quiet until you have finished the last draft. I imagine that to possibly be true. However, as a few of you have asked for more of WIP The Fair Incognito, I find it impossible to say no, just as I once found it impossible

Hi Everyone,   When I began writing again after a break of at least a decade, I turned to Jane Friedman’s How to Publish Your Book, produced by The Great Courses. In time, I subscribed to Jane’s blog. This past week she quoted a filmmaker who emphasised that when climbing a mountain don’t look at

Hi Everyone, For me, there was no clear line drawn between the passing of 2023 into 2024 on New Year’s Eve, no high spirits, complete with ball drop, glitter, music, dancing to an exquisitely orchestrated fireworks display. There was simply a delicious family meal with a brief look back at the past year, a tiny

Hi Everyone, Since you asked, here’s the opening (Chapter 1, page 1) of The Fair Incognito, my new novel now in progress. I hope you enjoy. ❤ “Maman, where are we?”     “In the pages of a rich and splendid book.”     “I’m hungry.”     “Of course you are.”     “There’s only bread.”     “And cheese?”     “I could shoot something.”     “You

Hi Everyone, Gun control. Having recently returned from the USA after an absence of almost ten years, there is one image that remains etched in my mind: a handgun. In the USA for my 50th high school reunion, I was delighted to find my classmates all happy, content and as agreeable as they had been

Someone recently asked if libraries were still a “thing.” For me, yes!  Of course there is the amazing digital interface, accessible from anywhere on the planet, which has increased library usage exponentially, and makes me marvel when I’m electronically thumbing through hundred-year-old illustrations or listening to an audio, albeit a robotic one, of a journal

Hi Everyone, With school on the horizon here in the UK – a September 25th start for Uni – I have been reflecting on my son’s summer travels. From inter-railing through Europe, crossing the Atlantic to Boston, eventually travelling on to Vermont and Niagara Falls, then back to London for the Notting Hill Carnival, and