Sue Guiney - My Guest on Bookersatz

Just a quick post to let you know that I have another very special weekend guest on Bookersatz today.

Sue Guiney has reviewed 'Private Life' by Jane Smiley, so please pop over and have a look at what she has to say.

Sue's own book 'A Clash Of Innocents' is absolutely fantastic, so if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it.

Writing Magazine

My article on 'writing short stories that stand out' is in this month's Writing Magazine. If you haven't already, you can find the magazine's very useful website here.

There are also articles from Simon Whaley, Adrian Magson and many more.

For those interested in writing for the women's magazine market, my first workshop is due to take place on 30 July, and full details can be found here. If you'd like to come along, please do get in touch.

I've posted a new review on Bookersatz today. LadyTechie has reviewed 'Grave Dance' by Kalayna Price.

I've been really pleased so far with the interest in my weekend guests on Bookersatz and I can tell you that in coming weeks we have Sue Guiney, Rosy Thornton, Tamsyn Murray, Isabel Ashdown, Kate Lord Brown and Leigh Russell contributing reviews.

As many of my blog readers will know, I've been a fan of Leigh Russell's work for a long time now. Her latest novel is called 'Dead End' and it has reached number 21 on the Amazon Kindle bestseller list. It's downloadable for 99p over the summer, so let's see if we can get it up into the top 20!

You can download 'Dead End' for Kindle here.

My Short Story Workshops

I am pleased to say that I have set a date for my first short story writing workshop. The workshop will look at writing for the increasingly tough and sadly shrinking women's magazine market. So if you've been writing for a while and want to find out more about this market, this workshop could be for you.

The workshop will take place on Saturday July 30 from 10.30am to 4pm. The venue is in Northamptonshire (full details, maps etc available on booking)and is in easy reach of public transport.

The cost will be £30 and this includes lunch/refreshments and the critique of one story (to be emailed to me prior to the course).

If you're interested in receiving full details and a booking form, please email me via my profile. If you can't manage this date but would be interested in future workshops, please also let me know.

In other news ...

The wonderful Kate Long is my guest on Bookersatz today.

Kate is the bestselling author of 'The Bad Mother's Handbook', 'Swallowing Grandma', 'Queen Mum', 'The Daughter Game' and 'Mothers And Daughters'. Her new novel 'All About My Mothers' is due to be released by Simon and Schuster in Spring 2012. You can find out more about Kate on her website and you can read my interview with Kate about her writing in this month's Writers' Forum magazine.

My Weekend Guests

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going to have some very special guest posts coming up on Bookersatz in the next few weeks. I've invited some of my favourite writers to contribute a review of one of the books they love.

First up this weekend will be Sherlockian expert and writer Alistair Duncan. He will be talking about 'The Sign Of Four' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so please look out for that on Saturday.

Other confirmed guests are novelists Kate Long, Sue Guiney, DJ Kirkby, Leigh Russell, Isabel Ashdown and Kate Lord Brown.

General Bookersatz posts from me and other contributors will continue mid-week. This week's review is of 'The Ghost Of Lily Painter' by Caitlin Davies and is up now.

Thanks to people who have contacted me to say they are interested in my short story workshop. I will be setting a date soon and will post full details then. If you want to be added to the 'interested' list, please email me via my profile.

Bookersatz

I've just posted a new review on Bookersatz. LadyTechie has reviewed 'Phoenix Rising' by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris.

I'm also very pleased to announce that over the next few weeks I'm going to be featuring guest reviews on Bookersatz from some of my favourite writers. Some of them will be talking about old favourites and others about recent books that have caught their eye!

I'll be posting more details about the guest posts coming up on this blog as I get them - so watch this space!

Hope you're all having great weeks so far.

The Beauty Chorus Blog Tour

I’m delighted to welcome Kate Lord Brown to my blog today as part of her tour for ‘The Beauty Chorus’.

‘The Beauty Chorus’ tells the story of three young women who sign up for the ATA during the Second World War. Regular readers of my blog will know that this is a historical period which I’m really interested in, so I wondered what had drawn Kate to this particular story.

Kate said:

'I think this particular story chose me - it wasn't so much the period as the idea that these young girls did this incredibly dangerous, brave work and no one knew about them. It's an era I know pretty well historically, because I specialised in Modern Art for my undergraduate degree, and I wrote my thesis on photography and fasion of the 30s and 40s. So in terms of popular culture - music, film, art, it's a historical period I feel comfortable with and love.



I like writing about relatively recent history because of the resources you have at your fingertips - the amazing sound archives and interviews of the Imperial War Museum, for example. One of the more poignant things about writing about WW2 is that each year there are less people who experienced it first hand - it was an amazing privilege to talk to veterans who had flown with the Air Transport Auxiliary, and their off-hand comments often told me more than whole piles of history books could.



I'm fascinated by the way ordinary men and women stepped up to the mark and showed extraordinary bravery and selflessness in the face of danger. Subsequent generations haven't had to confront global war - and I hope we never will again. But I think there are important lessons to learn from the past, and that's why I enjoy writing about this era - it's within living memory, but it is unimaginably far away in terms of experience. I love that contrast, and the chance to put yourself in other people's shoes and ask yourself 'what if'? What if you were a twenty year old girl with a private pilot's licence? Would you have the guts to 'do your bit', and fly unarmed across a war-torn country day after day when each one could have been your last? I think all stories start that way - just ask yourself 'what if'.'

Thanks very much to Kate for this fascinating insight to 'The Beauty Chorus'. You can find out more about Kate on her blog, and you can read my review of 'The Beauty Chorus' on Bookersatz now.

The Literary Project

I'm a guest over at The Literary Project today. I'm talking about the women's magazine short story market, so if you're interested please pop over.

I've also posted a very interesting review on Bookersatz recently. It's the Urban Fantasy 'Tangled Threads' by Jennifer Estep and the review comes from Lady Techie.

There are some great books coming up for review on Bookersatz in the next few weeks as well. I have 'Dead End' by Leigh Russell, 'The Lovers of Pound Hill' by Mavis Cheek and 'The Ghost Of Lily Painter' by Caitlin Davies - so keep an eye open for those as well.

As ever, I'm always on the lookout for guest reviews on Bookersatz, so if you're interested please get in touch.