I tried to explain everything to the casting agent. I was new in town. There was a small possibility that my reputation had not yet proceeded me. I even allowed myself to wonder if I might have more of a chance in this place.
Read More
The year I turned eighteen I decided to spend the summer holidays backpacking around Europe with a couple of my school chums. We would catch the train to Paris and make our way slowly South, then East, North and finally West, returning in time for matriculation.
Read More
This was to be my third summer at Seven Oaks. I had not been looking forward to it much for there was nothing for a lad to do in Seven Oaks. Grandpapa spent most of the day dozing in his armchair. Grandmama grew marrows and talked on the telephone and only seemed to notice me when it was time for something unpleasant: bed, or bath, or one of Mrs Mogford’s dreadful puddings.
Read More
I’m a big believer in ending well. Yesterday I shared the last Postcard Story in this series and it seems only right that I should stop and celebrate everything we’ve achieved over the last four months.
Read More
Louisa had it down to a fine art. She placed the ad in the personals column on a Tuesday morning. Tuesday was a slow day. The personals were cluttered up with people looking for handy men and kitchen assistants. The lonely hearts section was slim pickings. Nobody was thinking about romance on a Tuesday morning.
Read More
For seven years now, Oliver has been proposing and Sylvia has been putting her decision off. It is a game they play. It is not a very enjoyable game. At least, not from Oliver’s perspective.
Read More
All summer long, Clarissa has been studying the Longford boys. She is determined to marry one of them. She just can’t decide which.
Read More
Just after supper yesterday evening, Nurse Baxter came knocking on my study door. I was in the habit of taking a cup of cocoa before retiring and assumed this was Cook come calling, with her usual bedtime tray. I was not expecting Nurse Baxter. No one ever expects Nurse Baxter.
Read More
I had a friend at Oxford, a big strapping lad by the name of Hale; Joseph Hale. He used to get called Hearty on campus. Hale and Hearty. It wasn’t much of a nickname but none of them were. I went by Zimmo, for obvious reasons and, even now, when I bump into any of the old guard, up in London or down at Cheltenham during racing season, I’m still Zimmo to them.
Read More
It’s time for the annual reposting of my “stupid things people do during the Q & A session after a literary event” blog. And remember folks…don’t let the fact that the literary festivals have moved online this summer, stop you from making an absolute pig’s ears of asking your favourite writer a question.
Read More
The idea for this series of six interactive writing workshops was conceived and developed during the Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020. Watching people cocoon themselves within their own homes for weeks and months reminded me of what a great resource the imagination could be.
Read More
When it comes to writing our memories of the past it can be difficult to know where to begin. So many people and stories weave through our own story, choosing what to include and what to leave out can feel a little overwhelming. In this session we’ll explore how something as simple as an everyday object can be used to give shape, structure and colour to how we narrate our past and the stories which have made us who we are.
Read More
Most of us don’t notice the places we pass through every day. Spaces become so familiar to us we eventually become oblivious to them. Good travel writers all have the ability to see the places they move through with fresh eyes, noticing every tiny detail, using all their senses to describe what they’re experiencing and seamlessly weaving in both historical background and stories associated with the place.
Read More
A lot of people imagine writers sit down to write with a whole plot already worked out in their head. Perhaps some writers do, but most of the ones I’ve met spend more time developing characters than thinking about what actually happens in their stories.
Read More
Many writers find writing conversation between characters one of the hardest things to get right. Literature is full of examples of terrible dialogue: characters who sound unbelievably posh and polite or like comical caricatures of different stereotypes.
Read More
Every story has a plot. The plot is simply the sequence in which events happen. You might not realise it, but you use plot almost every time you have a conversation with another person.
Read More
When it comes to writing any kind of fiction writers need to work really hard to maintain the suspension of disbelief. The suspension of disbelief is just a fancy way of saying you’re helping your readers to enter into the make believe situation you’ve created on the page, to put aside reality for a few minutes and treat everything you’re telling them as believable truth.
Read More
Mrs Bantry lived in the big house on the outskirts of the village. The big house was not blessed with much in the way of aesthetic appeal. The best which could be said of it, was that it was a solid sort of building, square and imposing, much like Mrs Bantry herself.
Read More
They took a break after the third rubber. Miles was famished. Natalie required a top up. They went off to raid the kitchen whilst the other two had a cigarette on the back patio. Miles and Clifford were old pals from Cambridge. Natalie was Miles’ girl. The three of them had been meeting every Friday night for years to play bridge and bitch about the village’s other residents.
Read More
One of the best things to come out of winning the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland was undoubtedly the opportunity to see my work translated into various European language
Read More