Stop Press!! Or something!
Due to the (lovely, lovely, naughty) snow, this magnificent event will now take place on Thursday 9th December
Same time, same place.
Perhaps you'd like to come along??
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Coming up ...
Stop Press!! Or something!
Due to the (lovely, lovely, naughty) snow, this magnificent event will now take place on Thursday 9th December
Same time, same place.
Perhaps you'd like to come along??
Friday, 19 November 2010
On the top deck of the 36
You swing up the final step as the bus lurches a corner, sprinkling rain from your coat hem, your cuffs, your sorry excuse for an umbrella. Faces turn, from where they’re clustered, in pairs. Gazes grab at you, dismiss you –
Sitting at the very front, there’s an elderly couple on the left, while on the right, a young mum and her son dip and sway with the pattering night.
Hastily, the toddler returns to his earnest driving, his invisible wheel clenched tightly between woollen paws, his gone-bedtime eyes intense. It’s a good job he knows where you’re going, since no one else can see anything. Every single window is cottoned with condensation. You smell wet wool and cigarette ends. The secret leaves and mud patterns gridded to damp boots.
The middle seats are occupied by Girls Going Out. Insect eyelashes and hair straightened to the fluidity of tarmac – brittle blond, brunette and a combination of the two, carefully arranged stripes of oak and gold. Frosted lips all round. But these girls aren’t raucous, or giggling, as you might have expected. They’re not even whispering. Texting …
At the very back, one man, alone.
You take the seat behind the girls, but more because you’re afraid of skidding or stumbling than anything else. You haven’t realised, yet.
It doesn’t take long though, before you hear him. The way he’s drumming his heels against the floor, the thud of it an irregular heartbeat, almost exquisitely out of time with the engine’s wheezing, with the rain’s hiss and spatter. And when he speaks you realise that he’s probably been talking for some time. You’ve interrupted.
"I’m telling myself I’m a fucking idiot," he says.
And you turn, of course you do, along with everyone else. And yes, he’s definitely on his own. And no, he isn’t on a mobile.
He isn’t even old, or grubby-looking. But there’s the hollow volume of his voice. That shuffle-stamping. Thud ... Thud-thud, thud –
The girls’ eyes flash back at you. The old woman shakes her head.
But he continues:
"I’m telling myself not to think these things."
And his words seem so deliberate, it’s almost funny; they’re so painstakingly enunciated –
You realise that the folds of your umbrella are soaking a patch of darkness into the empty space at your side. And you know you ought to place it on the grey-glistening floor, but you don’t. Not yet. Because at the moment, you’re not moving. You’re listening.
"Just because these people," the man says. "These people –"
And now no one’s looking back there anymore. Everyone’s attention is singularly focused on those wide front windows, on the nothingness there, and a child humming. Driving with blind confidence into an expanse of clouded white.
Sitting at the very front, there’s an elderly couple on the left, while on the right, a young mum and her son dip and sway with the pattering night.
Hastily, the toddler returns to his earnest driving, his invisible wheel clenched tightly between woollen paws, his gone-bedtime eyes intense. It’s a good job he knows where you’re going, since no one else can see anything. Every single window is cottoned with condensation. You smell wet wool and cigarette ends. The secret leaves and mud patterns gridded to damp boots.
The middle seats are occupied by Girls Going Out. Insect eyelashes and hair straightened to the fluidity of tarmac – brittle blond, brunette and a combination of the two, carefully arranged stripes of oak and gold. Frosted lips all round. But these girls aren’t raucous, or giggling, as you might have expected. They’re not even whispering. Texting …
At the very back, one man, alone.
You take the seat behind the girls, but more because you’re afraid of skidding or stumbling than anything else. You haven’t realised, yet.
It doesn’t take long though, before you hear him. The way he’s drumming his heels against the floor, the thud of it an irregular heartbeat, almost exquisitely out of time with the engine’s wheezing, with the rain’s hiss and spatter. And when he speaks you realise that he’s probably been talking for some time. You’ve interrupted.
"I’m telling myself I’m a fucking idiot," he says.
And you turn, of course you do, along with everyone else. And yes, he’s definitely on his own. And no, he isn’t on a mobile.
He isn’t even old, or grubby-looking. But there’s the hollow volume of his voice. That shuffle-stamping. Thud ... Thud-thud, thud –
The girls’ eyes flash back at you. The old woman shakes her head.
But he continues:
"I’m telling myself not to think these things."
And his words seem so deliberate, it’s almost funny; they’re so painstakingly enunciated –
You realise that the folds of your umbrella are soaking a patch of darkness into the empty space at your side. And you know you ought to place it on the grey-glistening floor, but you don’t. Not yet. Because at the moment, you’re not moving. You’re listening.
"Just because these people," the man says. "These people –"
And now no one’s looking back there anymore. Everyone’s attention is singularly focused on those wide front windows, on the nothingness there, and a child humming. Driving with blind confidence into an expanse of clouded white.
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
On trains. And beauty. And things that happen
A beautiful woman sat beside me on the train, although I didn’t realise it at first – her beauty.
Because she wasn’t young. Because the colour had slipped from her hair, and yet it was her hair that caught me, tugging at the edge of my vision so that, again and again, I found myself glancing up from my novel, my notebook. Shifting in my seat.
Hair that clouded past her pale, lined throat, misting where it touched her shoulders. And when she bowed, brushing her lapels, I saw how thick it lay against her crown.
Luxurious.
I thought of down then, and purity.
Plump new pillows in a hushed hotel room. The untouchable place where a swan’s wings meet, tucked against its back.
No wonder I kept looking.
There was the smooth, lifted line of her jaw. Her elegant shoulders and long lean torso, acknowledged but discreet beneath her coat. She was all poise and posture and pleasing angles. I pictured her spine falling with the fluid certainty of a Jacob’s Ladder; she seemed so contained. Complete.
I slumped, a sack. My fingers fumbled with my fraying pages. My pen lid dropped anyway, skittering too loudly towards the aisle.
Her hands had come to a careful rest across her lap. Perhaps, after all, the most beautiful part of her. Those tapered fingers and pearly nails, a single ring. Skin so thin it made me wince. The veins beneath so delicate, frail threads winding towards neat knuckles, a spreading, silken blue …
It took me a moment to dare an "Excuse me". To reach across.
She drew her knees high as I leant past. Her coat whispered. Sharp folds with something softer underneath, and a whiff of rose water, and talcum powder. The scent of baths from long ago.
But beneath her trailing hem, her feet –
Without shoes or stockings, without socks. They were small enough, streaked and smudged enough, to have belonged to a young girl. If it wasn’t for their pallor, and the tiny cuts.
Nonetheless.
Her stripped heels and toes remained almost as elegant as her finely strung hands. One ankle bound with a plastic tag.
And in the moment before I sat back up, abandoning my pen lid where it had dropped, I recalled the commotion back at the station.
The ambulance parked in the damp outside, doors wide. Police and rail staff converging on the platform, radios buzzing. Yellow jackets against the grey …
And when, drawing breath, I straightened, she was staring at me. Eyes lit with mischief. She raised one finger to her lovely mouth.
"Hush," she said.
At least, I thought she said.
Before she looked beyond me to the window. To the black rain, black glass. Another carriage rumbling past.
Because she wasn’t young. Because the colour had slipped from her hair, and yet it was her hair that caught me, tugging at the edge of my vision so that, again and again, I found myself glancing up from my novel, my notebook. Shifting in my seat.
Hair that clouded past her pale, lined throat, misting where it touched her shoulders. And when she bowed, brushing her lapels, I saw how thick it lay against her crown.
Luxurious.
I thought of down then, and purity.
Plump new pillows in a hushed hotel room. The untouchable place where a swan’s wings meet, tucked against its back.
No wonder I kept looking.
There was the smooth, lifted line of her jaw. Her elegant shoulders and long lean torso, acknowledged but discreet beneath her coat. She was all poise and posture and pleasing angles. I pictured her spine falling with the fluid certainty of a Jacob’s Ladder; she seemed so contained. Complete.
I slumped, a sack. My fingers fumbled with my fraying pages. My pen lid dropped anyway, skittering too loudly towards the aisle.
Her hands had come to a careful rest across her lap. Perhaps, after all, the most beautiful part of her. Those tapered fingers and pearly nails, a single ring. Skin so thin it made me wince. The veins beneath so delicate, frail threads winding towards neat knuckles, a spreading, silken blue …
It took me a moment to dare an "Excuse me". To reach across.
She drew her knees high as I leant past. Her coat whispered. Sharp folds with something softer underneath, and a whiff of rose water, and talcum powder. The scent of baths from long ago.
But beneath her trailing hem, her feet –
Without shoes or stockings, without socks. They were small enough, streaked and smudged enough, to have belonged to a young girl. If it wasn’t for their pallor, and the tiny cuts.
Nonetheless.
Her stripped heels and toes remained almost as elegant as her finely strung hands. One ankle bound with a plastic tag.
And in the moment before I sat back up, abandoning my pen lid where it had dropped, I recalled the commotion back at the station.
The ambulance parked in the damp outside, doors wide. Police and rail staff converging on the platform, radios buzzing. Yellow jackets against the grey …
And when, drawing breath, I straightened, she was staring at me. Eyes lit with mischief. She raised one finger to her lovely mouth.
"Hush," she said.
At least, I thought she said.
Before she looked beyond me to the window. To the black rain, black glass. Another carriage rumbling past.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Monday, 11 October 2010
And it isn’t winter yet, but only autumn
Nicola is five years old again. She is somewhere wide and grassy, lined with paths and ancient trees, and her Dad is there, walking beside her. He’s laughing. It’s so easy to make him laugh; all Nicola has to do is pull a face, or swing from his coat sleeve, or simply chatter. It’s a kind of magic. When he glances down at her, which he does frequently, his grin is wide and real and full of glinting teeth. Even stooped over like that, he seems impossibly tall, as high as the treetops, and impossibly happy. There are dense, glowing ashes piled inside him. She can see them smouldering gently through his eyes.And it isn’t winter yet, but only autumn. "My favourite time of year," he tells her. The trees are full of autumn. They’re brown and yellow and rust-coloured, a waxy lipstick-red. One of the tallest is even a glorious deep purple. Nicola has been watching that one for a while, watching it grow larger up ahead. She’s longing to reach it. She wants to touch those purple leaves; she’d like to sniff them. If Dad isn’t looking, she might even slide one across her tongue . . .
Biting back a secret smile, she turns her head this way and then that, taking in the clean, crisp sky and the dewy grass, the mushrooms that sprout among the tree roots in a spongy, spreading rash. There are conkers everywhere. They litter the path like fat Maltesers, but Nicola isn’t collecting them, not today. She feels one roll beneath the sole of her boot and her smile grows. The conker’s too hard to crunch down on, but nonetheless the roll itself is satisfying. She steps sideways to make it happen again, but Dad snatches up her hand, and the air stirs and thickens all around them.
It’s smoky, this autumn air, full of the promise of Halloween and Bonfire Night. It makes Nicola think of wet socks and coming home, of potatoes and foil blackening together amidst white, untouchable coals . . . But then Dad pulls her closer still and the smokiness gives way to the familiar scent of his creaking leather jacket. Briefly, she nuzzles her face into his side. He smells sweet and musty, like the inside of the car.
As soon as they reach the purple tree, he’ll swing her up into the branches. Nicola knows that it will happen without her even having to ask. "There you go, Princess," he’ll say, his face big and pink and beaming, and as he lifts her, she’ll reach down with her small, stubby hands. She will run her fingers over his wiry head and watch the ripple of his thick brown curls. Then she’ll look past him to admire her own feet, kicking back and forth through empty space.
He won’t be able to reach high enough to ruffle her hair in return, but his grin will somehow spread even wider, splitting his beard, and: "On top of the world, kid," he’ll say in one of his silly T.V. voices. Then it will be Nicola’s turn to laugh.
Time will pass up in that tree. The bubbles of sunshine between the leaves will slowly stretch and burst and turn a deeper shade of orange, but he won’t make her go home. She’ll cut him off before he can suggest it: "Please, Dad, not just yet . . ."
And he will nod, his big face flushed with the early sunset. He’ll go on holding her safe and steady among the swaying, purple branches until eventually Nicola will feel as if she’s floating. Fluttering. On top of the world. She’ll never have been as high before, never so knowingly happy.
(extracted from The Dawning)
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Canoe
During the weeks when he was leaving, the feeling that she carried almost constantly, that she lugged to work and around the supermarket, the sensation that flattened her to the mattress every single sleepless night – that feeling, was canoe shaped.
She came to see it very clearly.
An old, wooden canoe with cracked, warped boards, its paintwork weathered grey. The sort of given-up boat that’s sometimes transformed into a tourist sign, stabbed vertically into the ground before a row of cabins, a forest campsite. Once it might have been daubed with words, ‘River View’, or ‘Hiawatha’s Retreat’. Some such brochure-shit.
It wasn’t a canoe anybody would ever actually use. You couldn’t even bob in the shallows with it, let alone negotiate rapids or glide between dragonflies and lush green banks. Undoubtedly, it leaked.
And what use was that, a canoe like that, inside her?
She could feel it all too keenly.
Her flesh, her skin, draped awkwardly around it, like wet clothes heaped across a cheap hanger. Her stomach was crushed thin beneath it, and she had no idea how her ribcage managed. And yet it was such a waste of space, that canoe. While it’s oar-less heart remained stubbornly, greedily empty, filled with nothing but aching, sour air, she had to struggle to live around its edges. Some nights, in bed, when he was there, or not there, beside her, it made it difficult to breathe.
The only time she’d ever experienced anything remotely similar was after her mother had died. Remembering this, she wondered if the feeling wasn’t canoe-shaped after all, but more like a coffin? Except how did that help? How did that make anything easier? The idea of hauling a coffin about, of it rearranging your insides?
And even after he’d finally left the house for good, the feeling didn’t go.
She couldn’t escape it and there came a point when she feared she might start telling people, as if she couldn’t help it. Running into friends or colleagues, or even the familiar strangers at the station each morning, she became filled with the urge to reach out, to pluck at a sleeve or a hesitant hand –
“There’s a canoe,” she might tell them. Hissing: “A fucking canoe, inside me.”
Except it was far too easy to imagine how their lips might twitch or their eyebrows jump. The whole aghast or overly polite way they’d probably nod back at her. As if they hadn’t even heard of a canoe before. As if she was the type of woman to go mad.
She came to see it very clearly.
An old, wooden canoe with cracked, warped boards, its paintwork weathered grey. The sort of given-up boat that’s sometimes transformed into a tourist sign, stabbed vertically into the ground before a row of cabins, a forest campsite. Once it might have been daubed with words, ‘River View’, or ‘Hiawatha’s Retreat’. Some such brochure-shit.
It wasn’t a canoe anybody would ever actually use. You couldn’t even bob in the shallows with it, let alone negotiate rapids or glide between dragonflies and lush green banks. Undoubtedly, it leaked.
And what use was that, a canoe like that, inside her?
She could feel it all too keenly.
Her flesh, her skin, draped awkwardly around it, like wet clothes heaped across a cheap hanger. Her stomach was crushed thin beneath it, and she had no idea how her ribcage managed. And yet it was such a waste of space, that canoe. While it’s oar-less heart remained stubbornly, greedily empty, filled with nothing but aching, sour air, she had to struggle to live around its edges. Some nights, in bed, when he was there, or not there, beside her, it made it difficult to breathe.
The only time she’d ever experienced anything remotely similar was after her mother had died. Remembering this, she wondered if the feeling wasn’t canoe-shaped after all, but more like a coffin? Except how did that help? How did that make anything easier? The idea of hauling a coffin about, of it rearranging your insides?
And even after he’d finally left the house for good, the feeling didn’t go.
She couldn’t escape it and there came a point when she feared she might start telling people, as if she couldn’t help it. Running into friends or colleagues, or even the familiar strangers at the station each morning, she became filled with the urge to reach out, to pluck at a sleeve or a hesitant hand –
“There’s a canoe,” she might tell them. Hissing: “A fucking canoe, inside me.”
Except it was far too easy to imagine how their lips might twitch or their eyebrows jump. The whole aghast or overly polite way they’d probably nod back at her. As if they hadn’t even heard of a canoe before. As if she was the type of woman to go mad.
Friday, 17 September 2010
Fings
While things around these parts have been a bit upside-down or inside-out or generally the wrong-way-round lately, there's nonetheless been some great writing stuff happening, and more to look forward to.
At the end of the summer, I returned to this fab review (thank you Pam Mc at guide2nottingham for allowing me to tug your 'emotions through a wringer' (-:), and I also met a brilliant North London bookgroup who had chosen The Dawning as an August read. It was such an interesting and enjoyable evening.
It was a proper dark-and-stormy night. The conservatory roof was ink-black and shuddering with rain and as we ate and drank and chatted beneath it, it struck me all over again how a novel stops belonging to an author once it slips off into the world - how it slides and shifts, becoming so many different stories. Stories as diverse and unique as their individual readers.
I loved having that reminder; it's such a frightening and wonderful thing. And I was also blown away by how the novel's characters felt as real as the brilliant people discussing them.
:-)
Coming up!
Alongside my lovely publisher and fellow Weathervane Press authors, I'll be chatting books (again!) at Nottingham Writers Club on October 6th, as part of the Weathervane Vocal Books Tour.
Towards the end of the month, I'm looking forward to learning more at Jon McGregor's editing workshop at Nottingham Contemporary.
And I'm really ridiculously excited about running away all over again too. Especially about staying in a Cube.
At the end of the summer, I returned to this fab review (thank you Pam Mc at guide2nottingham for allowing me to tug your 'emotions through a wringer' (-:), and I also met a brilliant North London bookgroup who had chosen The Dawning as an August read. It was such an interesting and enjoyable evening.
It was a proper dark-and-stormy night. The conservatory roof was ink-black and shuddering with rain and as we ate and drank and chatted beneath it, it struck me all over again how a novel stops belonging to an author once it slips off into the world - how it slides and shifts, becoming so many different stories. Stories as diverse and unique as their individual readers.
I loved having that reminder; it's such a frightening and wonderful thing. And I was also blown away by how the novel's characters felt as real as the brilliant people discussing them.
:-)
Coming up!
Alongside my lovely publisher and fellow Weathervane Press authors, I'll be chatting books (again!) at Nottingham Writers Club on October 6th, as part of the Weathervane Vocal Books Tour.
Towards the end of the month, I'm looking forward to learning more at Jon McGregor's editing workshop at Nottingham Contemporary.
And I'm really ridiculously excited about running away all over again too. Especially about staying in a Cube.
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Shanta Everington and The Terrible Twos
Shanta Everington is a hugely talented and hardworking writer*. In celebration of her latest publication success, The Terrible Twos: A Parent's Guide, she’s dropped by my blog so I could pick her incredible brains …
Could you please tell me a little about the book, and how you came to write it? What makes ‘The Terrible Twos’ different from other parent guides?
Could you please tell me a little about the book, and how you came to write it? What makes ‘The Terrible Twos’ different from other parent guides?
S: The inspiration for 'The Terrible Twos: A Parent's Guide' came from my son and our trials and tribulations through the 'terrible twos'. I found that a lot of parenting books seemed to offer very prescriptive advice with a 'one size fits all' mentality and that didn't make sense to me. After all, every parent and child is different. When my son and I were struggling through the 'terrible twos', I found it so useful to hear from other parents about their experiences. My son threw major traffic stopping tantrums! Some parents had no problems with tantrums at all but worried themselves sick about faddy eaters. For others, the potty had become an object of much fear and hatred! Sleep regularly cropped up in the conversations. So many parents were wonderfully generous in contributing case studies and quotes for the book. There are parenting books written by non-parents (e.g. SuperNanny and Gina Ford) and parenting books written by journalists with no professional childcare training. I'm a parent and a qualified early years teacher, so hopefully I can contribute personal experience and professional expertise. The book also draws on the experiences of a wide range of other parents and every chapter includes a real life case study. My book is unique because it doesn't tell parents 'how to' parent or what they 'should' be doing. Rather it recognises that every family is different and offers a range of strategies to help parents find their own way to transform the 'terrible twos' into the 'terrific twos'!
How do you find writing non-fiction in comparison to fiction? Is either easier? Do you juggle both at the same time?
S: I really enjoy both but the process is very different. For me, writing fiction is more organic and fluid. I start with a burning idea and character(s) that I feel I just have to write about and I go with the flow. With non-fiction, the contents have to be more mapped out at the start, especially if commissioned in advance. But I was surprised to discover that the writing can still take unexpected turns.
S: I really enjoy both but the process is very different. For me, writing fiction is more organic and fluid. I start with a burning idea and character(s) that I feel I just have to write about and I go with the flow. With non-fiction, the contents have to be more mapped out at the start, especially if commissioned in advance. But I was surprised to discover that the writing can still take unexpected turns.
I don't think either is necessarily easier but non-fiction seems easier to put down and pick up again. It's a slightly more detached process, although I did get very passionately engaged with this book! If I'm working on a novel, I really need to be able to immerse myself in the characters' worlds and live and breathe through them. I find it very intense and I have to be in the right 'place'. There are other challenges with writing non-fiction - for me, there was a lot more research for starters! I planned to juggle both at the same time but it was too hard! So I tend to focus on one at a time. :)
You’ve previously had two stunning novels published (‘Marilyn and Me’and ‘Give me a Sign’), how has the publishing process varied with ‘The Terrible Twos’?
S: (Blushing...) Thank you, Megan. With both my novels, I wrote them without a publisher in mind. I wrote them for myself, focusing on the integrity of the characters and the story and only when they were finished, redrafted and edited several times did I start to think about finding a suitable publisher.
With 'The Terrible Twos', I sent a proposal (synopsis, contents, sample chapter) to the publisher and was commissioned on the basis of that. It was exciting to have a publisher on board at the outset but a little scary to see the book available to pre-order on Amazon before I'd actually finished writing it!!!
It wasn't the first proposal I sent them but it's obviously less time consuming to work up proposals and have them 'rejected' than write entire books! I have (coughs) several novels that never made it to publication.
S: (Blushing...) Thank you, Megan. With both my novels, I wrote them without a publisher in mind. I wrote them for myself, focusing on the integrity of the characters and the story and only when they were finished, redrafted and edited several times did I start to think about finding a suitable publisher.
With 'The Terrible Twos', I sent a proposal (synopsis, contents, sample chapter) to the publisher and was commissioned on the basis of that. It was exciting to have a publisher on board at the outset but a little scary to see the book available to pre-order on Amazon before I'd actually finished writing it!!!
It wasn't the first proposal I sent them but it's obviously less time consuming to work up proposals and have them 'rejected' than write entire books! I have (coughs) several novels that never made it to publication.
Along with being an incredible writer (of parenting guides, education resources, journalistic articles, interviews and reviews, of novels, short stories and poetry …) you’re also a tutor and a mother – do you ever sleep?
S: (Blushing again...) You are way too kind. Well, I certainly survive on a lot less sleep than I used to! It's true that I am very busy right now but there was a long time when it seemed that many doors were closed to me so I don't like to complain about it!
What’s next for you, Shanta?
S: Well, Need2Know have commissioned me to write a second book, 'Baby's First Year: A Parent's Guide', which will be published in 2011. So I'm just starting to gather material for that. If anyone reading this has a baby and wants to be included in the book, please do get in touch via my website (www.shantaeverington.co.uk)!
In terms of other writing, I have two short stories appearing in two different anthologies this year - 'Yasmina's Elbow' in 'Even More Tonto Short Stories' (Tonto Books) and 'Graft' in 'Mosaic Open Anthology' (Bridge House Publishing), which is really exciting too.
Thank you, Shanta!
S: No, thank you!!!
* Not only is Shanta an incredibly talented, productive and inspiring writer, she’s also completely lovely. I first met her three years ago, when I read alongside her and the fabulous Caroline Smailes at Manchester Central library. We were each reading from our debut novels and it’s been wonderful following these wonderful women’s writing journeys.
Can’t wait to see where we all go from here . . .
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
EBOOK!!
If you prefer digital to paper, you can now buy The Dawning in eBook format too
(just thought I'd mention it)
m xx
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Fairies
Mid-Summer at the station and the air is full of fairies.
Cotton-fluff, you tell me and sweep one arm towards the trees, as if those rippling shadows and foaming leaves could explain anything clearly. I turn back slowly, through the soft.
The afternoon hugs us, closer than our skin. The sky melts into your face and I smell the grey sludge of my old sun-screen, and cooking metal, from the fence ribs and the tracks.
Fairies, I insist.
And though you join me, you remain begrudging, at first.
Except there are so many, it's dizzying, giggling. Irrisistible. And they're easy to catch. Wilting to white spiders in our hands.
Soon we're both leaping and laughing, wishing relentlessly. Clapping each time we flick them free. You're with me now, completely -
After all, there's a lot to wish for. A blizzard of dreams burn bright between my sticky lashes. There's hope in your high-pitched, hitching breath.
The train's not here yet, but the air thrums. Secrets spiral, rising, blurring with the whir of a swallow's wing.
Cotton-fluff, you tell me and sweep one arm towards the trees, as if those rippling shadows and foaming leaves could explain anything clearly. I turn back slowly, through the soft.
The afternoon hugs us, closer than our skin. The sky melts into your face and I smell the grey sludge of my old sun-screen, and cooking metal, from the fence ribs and the tracks.
Fairies, I insist.
And though you join me, you remain begrudging, at first.
Except there are so many, it's dizzying, giggling. Irrisistible. And they're easy to catch. Wilting to white spiders in our hands.
Soon we're both leaping and laughing, wishing relentlessly. Clapping each time we flick them free. You're with me now, completely -
After all, there's a lot to wish for. A blizzard of dreams burn bright between my sticky lashes. There's hope in your high-pitched, hitching breath.
The train's not here yet, but the air thrums. Secrets spiral, rising, blurring with the whir of a swallow's wing.
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Summer Reading
On holiday, and around the edges, some of the books I've (splashed with Sangria and gritted with black sand) loved lately -
Forgetting Zoe by Ray Robinson - completely stunning, beautiful and brutal, this utterly blew me away
Train by Pete Dexter - further intriguing and complex Americana, not quite as good as his glorious and devastating Paris Trout, but almost
Like Bees to Honey by the lovely Caroline Smailes - everything I was hoping for, and more. Loss, redemption and Jesus at the bar. Take it away with you, or curl up at home. You'll love it however
Bury Me Deep - more sheer Megan Abbot goodness, this time noir in elegant thirties shades
Not So Perfect - Mr Perring provides some surreal and superb snapshots of the way we are or might be in these perfectly proportioned short short stories
A Fair Maiden - another twisted fable from the indomitable Ms Oates, Joyce Carol I will love you forever
Forgetting Zoe by Ray Robinson - completely stunning, beautiful and brutal, this utterly blew me away
Train by Pete Dexter - further intriguing and complex Americana, not quite as good as his glorious and devastating Paris Trout, but almost
Like Bees to Honey by the lovely Caroline Smailes - everything I was hoping for, and more. Loss, redemption and Jesus at the bar. Take it away with you, or curl up at home. You'll love it however
Bury Me Deep - more sheer Megan Abbot goodness, this time noir in elegant thirties shades
Not So Perfect - Mr Perring provides some surreal and superb snapshots of the way we are or might be in these perfectly proportioned short short stories
A Fair Maiden - another twisted fable from the indomitable Ms Oates, Joyce Carol I will love you forever
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Weathervane Summer Sale!
In the spirit of holiday reading (be it lost in the grass, cocktails at dusk, a leaky cottage or simply a Sunday lie-in) my magnificent publisher, Weathervane Press, are having a Summer Sale.For a limited period, you can pick up any Weathervane title (including The Dawning) at half-price - that's just £3.99 - and with FREE P&P too!
Just what are you waiting for?!?
oh - here's a bookshop link
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Discovering Megan Abbot
She’s been collecting awards and accolades for years, but I’ve only just discovered Megan Abbot.
I started accidentally, on a whim, with her second novel, The Song is You. The book’s styling made me pick it up (my husband’s a bit partial to pulp art and I’ve grown to have rather a soft spot too, our dining room is walled with it), but as soon as I began to read, I fell hard and I fell fast. Just the way you should with such a book.
Abbot writes period novels in the hardboiled/noir tradition. She’s frequently compared to Chandler (and I love Chandler), but there’s both a succinctness and sumptuous lyricism to Abbot’s writing that is absolutely her own. She’s everything I might have hoped for in this genre. And so much more.
There are bent cops and wayward starlets, cloudy bars and glittering casinos, each crackling, sizzling story accompanied by perfect pacing, hooks and twists. The moral ambiguity is brilliantly layered – everything and everyone has a beautifully rendered seamy underside - and while Queenpin is simply dazzling, in each of her novels, her female characters are outstanding.
And this is hugely appealing. Personally I’ve always had a thing about fictional ‘bad girls’ (Oates’ Foxfire is one of my all-time favourite books). It’s also more generally refreshing – not that this is some simple redressing, the chilling brutality of gender politics runs in dark threads throughout Abbot’s books.
Most of all though, she tells fascinating, stylish and irresistible stories.
And her covers truly are amazing. And she’s called Megan. What’s not to like?
Thursday, 1 July 2010
Wimbledon
After he’d left us, during those final weeks, I’d rush home from school each afternoon to find my mother spread across the sofa cushions, watching the tennis.At least she appeared to be watching it. The room was so dimmed it was difficult to tell. The French windows often stood wide open, but she kept the curtains closed. The garden’s heat and buzzing drifted in, in small, squeezed pieces, although now and then, the lined hems quivered with a more persistent, fruit-tinged breeze.
And from the television, that very English murmur:
"Fifteen – Love"
Before the furred, steady thud of the ball resumed. On and on, like a heartbeat. Back and forth, like breath.
My mother watched the screen and I watched her. I’d never seen her looking quite so blank, or pale, or still. Not in the flesh, anyway. She looked like an old photograph of herself, perhaps one of the perfume campaign shots, when they had swathed her in silk, behind a misted lens. She looked just as dreamy and beautiful, and as unnervingly unreal . . . When the telephone rang she hardly stirred. She’d glance up, but that was all, or shift to rearrange the cushions at her neck, but she wouldn’t rise. She never answered.
While it trilled though, she sometimes smiled in my general direction and once or twice, she raised her glass to me. She winked.
Or seemed to wink. Through those blowsy shadows, that uncertain light.
And I do remember crossing the room. Not to answer any call either, but to sit on the rug beside her. Beside her glass, filled with gin and tonic and shifting ice. And I remember how meticulous her movements were when she lifted her drink over my head. I remember that hiss and icy tinkle, while the ball-girls ducked and ran in circles, then fell hastily back into place.
(from The Lives of Ghosts)
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Lowdham!
A quick reminder!
I'll be reading and chatting this Saturday morning at Lowdham Book Festival, alongside the splendid and talented Nigel Pickard and Ian Collinson.
Come along! You know you want to
(-:
I'll be reading and chatting this Saturday morning at Lowdham Book Festival, alongside the splendid and talented Nigel Pickard and Ian Collinson.
Come along! You know you want to
(-:
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Tell Me Stories of Your Trinkets
You were on my bus. I didn’t notice you, at first.
Through the window, there was rain, cars, a smear of trees. Each wet day the patterns are almost the same, grey and green, dissolving. And watching the pavement melt into the leaves, I felt that pinch, that small longing, like I always do.
Your perfume found me first. A smoky-brown scent, patchouli hints, resurrecting memories of park benches and my own growing up, of shop-brand cola, generously spiked. Nonetheless, for a moment still, I kept my forehead to the glass.
It was the sound of you that made me turn. From across the aisle, you jangled. And then you sparkled, and I wondered.
I studied your earrings first. A matching, flamboyant pair. Dangling loops of shivering gold, with wooden animals attached. Camels or llamas, maybe cats. Souvenirs, I thought, from somewhere exotic, Morocco or Kenya or further East. Those earrings spoke of holidays, of escape, or perhaps merely of hoping. A desire to be gone.
There was a single metal ear-cuff too, on your left side, clipped higher, catching stray hair. That might have been when I thought of ballpoint pens. Of pinning you in place.
There were two strings around your neck. The first a set of love-beads, multi-coloured seeds that drip-drip-dripped between your woollen breasts, bright as the candy necklaces we’d fight over as little girls. Pinging elastic in search of treasure, chasing summer flavours, pastel dust.
The second string was tighter. A black leather lace, suggestive of a noose, or dog-tags. Maybe even a lead. Perhaps a gift – did he like to see it there? There was a pendant attached, stone-like, bone-like; I couldn’t read the words it bore (if words they were), but its shadow was distinct. A second secret message smudged red against your skin.
In your lap, your folded fingers. Your hands revealed a single ring, and the space where one once was.
The ring was gold, with a green stone, shining with a broken, antique light. An heirloom, surely, passed down from some austere aunt, or a shadowy grandma . . . Unless it had simply belonged to your mother? I wondered how frequently you felt its weight. How much you might still miss her.
And that paler strip of skin on the third finger of your left hand; it betrayed you so that I hardly needed to guess. Except – instead of looking stripped bare, that fine line glowed, a milky glimmer. It looked younger than the rest of you. A thread of newborn flesh.
You lifted that hand then, to the pole. Already, it was your stop.
The bus bell buzzed, but I hardly heard it. I was distracted, freshly captivated, charmed by the charms about your wrist, those tiny, flickering trinkets. I wasn’t close enough to see them; nonetheless, I did my best. I pictured a silver figure and a glinting guppy, a perfect doll’s house clock. You chimed – jangling once more – as you heaved yourself upright.
I could have cried out as you rose; your bracelet sang, but you only sighed. And you remained mostly faceless, shapeless; I’d hardly started – I didn’t want to let you go.
Through the window, there was rain, cars, a smear of trees. Each wet day the patterns are almost the same, grey and green, dissolving. And watching the pavement melt into the leaves, I felt that pinch, that small longing, like I always do.
Your perfume found me first. A smoky-brown scent, patchouli hints, resurrecting memories of park benches and my own growing up, of shop-brand cola, generously spiked. Nonetheless, for a moment still, I kept my forehead to the glass.
It was the sound of you that made me turn. From across the aisle, you jangled. And then you sparkled, and I wondered.
I studied your earrings first. A matching, flamboyant pair. Dangling loops of shivering gold, with wooden animals attached. Camels or llamas, maybe cats. Souvenirs, I thought, from somewhere exotic, Morocco or Kenya or further East. Those earrings spoke of holidays, of escape, or perhaps merely of hoping. A desire to be gone.
There was a single metal ear-cuff too, on your left side, clipped higher, catching stray hair. That might have been when I thought of ballpoint pens. Of pinning you in place.
There were two strings around your neck. The first a set of love-beads, multi-coloured seeds that drip-drip-dripped between your woollen breasts, bright as the candy necklaces we’d fight over as little girls. Pinging elastic in search of treasure, chasing summer flavours, pastel dust.
The second string was tighter. A black leather lace, suggestive of a noose, or dog-tags. Maybe even a lead. Perhaps a gift – did he like to see it there? There was a pendant attached, stone-like, bone-like; I couldn’t read the words it bore (if words they were), but its shadow was distinct. A second secret message smudged red against your skin.
In your lap, your folded fingers. Your hands revealed a single ring, and the space where one once was.
The ring was gold, with a green stone, shining with a broken, antique light. An heirloom, surely, passed down from some austere aunt, or a shadowy grandma . . . Unless it had simply belonged to your mother? I wondered how frequently you felt its weight. How much you might still miss her.
And that paler strip of skin on the third finger of your left hand; it betrayed you so that I hardly needed to guess. Except – instead of looking stripped bare, that fine line glowed, a milky glimmer. It looked younger than the rest of you. A thread of newborn flesh.
You lifted that hand then, to the pole. Already, it was your stop.
The bus bell buzzed, but I hardly heard it. I was distracted, freshly captivated, charmed by the charms about your wrist, those tiny, flickering trinkets. I wasn’t close enough to see them; nonetheless, I did my best. I pictured a silver figure and a glinting guppy, a perfect doll’s house clock. You chimed – jangling once more – as you heaved yourself upright.
I could have cried out as you rose; your bracelet sang, but you only sighed. And you remained mostly faceless, shapeless; I’d hardly started – I didn’t want to let you go.
Monday, 7 June 2010
LeftLion
I was in the fabulous Broadway cinema's cafe last week, leafing through the latest issue of Nottingham's culture bible, LeftLion (as you do when waiting for your friend to reappear from the bar with wine AND cake) when - lo and behold - I found a new review of The Dawning!Although LeftLion were kind enough to feature the novel previously on a podcast, I didn't expect to come across the review and I was deeply chuffed. LeftLion is amazing - funny and insightful and truly unique.
And while The Dawning perhaps proved a little 'ominous' for reviewer Robin Lewis with its 'general air of creeping disaster', apparently 'Taylor has crafted an involving picture of a family in a tailspin'
(well done Taylor!)
If you're not lucky enough to live in Nottingham, I believe you can download the complete, free magazine from their website. Not only do Leftlion provide reviews, great comment, brilliant interviews and top listings, they also publish quite possibly the best star-signs in the Universe.
(ie; 'Capricorn - If you want to keep a cool house this summer then buy a beagle and train it to smoke. Surveys have suggested that a smoking beagle is the coolest house pet you can possibly have, ranking above a juggling monkey and a cat in a jumpsuit. Do not put the beagle in a jumpsuit.')
Monday, 24 May 2010
Lowdham Book Festival 2010
My lovely publisher says ...
Weathervane Press are delighted to announce they will be hosting an event at the excellent Lowdham Book Festival final Saturday on June 26th.
We will be launching the Weathervane Live Vocal Books Tour at this event, which takes place at 10.30 am in the Lit & Phil Tent behind the Village Hall. There will also be readings by Megan Taylor from her thriller 'The Dawning' published in January and Nigel Pickard from 'Attention Deficit' published in March. All Weathervane books will be on sale at the event and throughout the day from our own stall at the Book Fair also in Lowdham Village Hall. The event is free - no ticket required.
Full details of the Lowdham Book Festival programme can be found at http://www.lowdhambookfestival.co.uk/
I say:
Come along! Say hello! You know you want to!
Weathervane Press are delighted to announce they will be hosting an event at the excellent Lowdham Book Festival final Saturday on June 26th.
We will be launching the Weathervane Live Vocal Books Tour at this event, which takes place at 10.30 am in the Lit & Phil Tent behind the Village Hall. There will also be readings by Megan Taylor from her thriller 'The Dawning' published in January and Nigel Pickard from 'Attention Deficit' published in March. All Weathervane books will be on sale at the event and throughout the day from our own stall at the Book Fair also in Lowdham Village Hall. The event is free - no ticket required.
Full details of the Lowdham Book Festival programme can be found at http://www.lowdhambookfestival.co.uk/
I say:
Come along! Say hello! You know you want to!
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