I’m delighted to have managed to dovetail the end of a novel with the end of the year. Very satisfying! To be strictly truthful my novel needs one more read-through before being despatched to my agent. And the timing is happenstance rather than skilful planning. My next and fairly crucial job is to decide on…
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Teaching is over for the year, and in fact, for me at St Andrews, forever as I decided this spring that it’s time to part company from that august institution. I feel wistful at leaving behind those beautiful old buildings and my wonderfully talented colleagues, but also excited at the prospect of new work and…
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Everything currently cancelled! Watch this space. Here’s a link to a live Facebook book group on Blasted Things that I did for the University of St Andrews Alumni Association: https://youtu.be/5X9QmcG77E4 And here’s a link to a piece of mine included on a great site called Shepherd, which asks writers to choose books with links to a…
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1. Do you come from a literary background? Absolutely not. Both my parents were keen readers and there were books in the house, bedtime stories and visits to the library, but I didn’t know any real in-the-flesh writers, and I saw them as special people. Although I wanted to write stories as soon as I…
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Naturally, it was a fabulous surprise to get the news that I’d won a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. And what a brilliant prize it is. The money (£5,000) is, of course, a lovely bonus, but what is most useful and impressive is the amount of promotion and publicity that the prize entails. The thought that…
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