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Marie Curie by Paul May 3 Nov 9:00 PM (yesterday, 9:00 pm)

One of the first books I read when I set out to read all the Carnegie Medal winners several years ago was The Radium Woman by Eleanor Doorly. Like, I suspect, most people, I knew roughly who Marie Curie was but didn't know much about her life and work other than that she discovered the element, radium. (She also discovered polonium and named it for her native country.) Marie Curie died in 1934, and Eleanor Doorly's foreword is dated March 1939, so she must have started working on the book with Curie's death a very recent memory. She says:

'The life of Madame Curie has been written by her daughter with a charm and beauty never surpassed. It is therefore with the deepest humility that I have ventured to make out of that lovely book a shorter tale for young people.'

I have just finished reading a short book by the Spanish novelist and journalist, Rosa Montero, called, in Spanish, La ridicula idea de no volver a verte, which means something like, The ridiculous idea of never seeing you again. After Montero's husband died her editor sent her a copy of the diary which Marie Curie wrote after the sudden death of her husband, Pierre. (He fell under the wheels of a heavy cart in a Paris street and his skull was crushed.) The editor wanted Montero to write an introduction to the diary, which was only a few pages long, but hoped that reading the diary might prompt her to write something more substantial, something to which the diary would become a 'complement' or addition. And that is what happened.

Montero went out and bought as many biographies as she could find.  It turns out that Rosa Montero corresponded with Ursula K Le Guin. What she actually says in her book is: 'I have had the immense good fortune and privilege of developing a certain friendship with Ursula K Le Guin, who is one of the writers whose influence over my work I consciously recognise.' As an aside, I was once talking to Jan Mark about science fiction and mentioned Ursula Le Guin and I can still hear the thrill in her voice when she said 'She's my friend!'

Anyway, Rosa Montero had written to Le Guin that she wanted to write a book about Marie Curie, and part of Le Guin's reply was as follows:

'I read a biography of Marie Curie when I was about 16 or 17 . . .  Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me but what I remember is that, after Pierre died in the street, she kept a piece of cloth with which she had tried to clean his face. Some of his blood and his brains had remained on the fabric and she kept it, hiding it from everyone, until she had to burn it. That image has haunted me anxiously all these years.'

Rosa Montero had read Marie Curie's diary but had assumed that when she referred to burning Pierre's clothes and 'kissing what was left of him' she was doing so immediately after his death and was kissing 'metaphorically'. Then she managed to get hold of a copy of Eve Curie's 'lovely book' and discovered that it was two months later that these events took place. I found myself wondering what Eleanor Doorly had made of this in her book. Unsurprisingly, she left it out.  Pierre's death and its aftermath is treated like this:

When Eve grew up, she told us, in the lovely life she wrote of her mother, that from the moment she spoke the words 'Pierre est mort,' a cloak of solitude and secrecy enveloped Marie, and that from that April day for ever she was a person apart and lonely.

Eve is being a little melodramatic here. There are very many ways in which Marie was engaged with other people. For example, here she is at the inaugural Solvey Congress which ended coincidentally on 3rd November 1911 (125 years ago today). This was where she first met Albert Einstein, who is standing behind her and was a friend for the rest of her life. Einstein stands between her lover, the physicist Paul Langevin (furthest right) and Ernest Rutherford. Also omitted from Eleanor Doorly's book is any mention of Marie's and Paul's affaire. On their return to Paris after the conference, a massive scandal broke out as the press revealed details of Marie's correspondence with Paul, portraying her as a scarlet woman, a foreigner, a jew and an imposter. That same year she won her second Nobel prize. As Eve Curie pointed out bitterly :

Each time Marie Curie was acclaimed for her talent in other countries, when they praised her with previously unheard-of elegies, then immediately she became for the same newspapers and beneath the bylines of the same journalists, the 'ambassador of France,' 'the pure representation of the genius of our race' and 'a national glory.'

Here's how Eleanor Doorly dealt with the scandal:

'But unfortunately there is a strange disease which causes certain people to feel very cruel when they hear of someone being very successful or very beautiful. Marie was both, and suddenly people began to write her anonymous letters and to tell extraordinary lies about her and to accuse her of doing wrong things of which she had never dreamed . . .'

Certainly, there is no danger of a child reading The Radium Woman and being haunted like Ursula Le Guin for the rest of their lives by a gruesome detail. They might, however, be envious of the education Marie's children received. For a brief space of time Marie and her friends engaged in an exercise in home-schooling, or rather, in a kind of shared tutoring ;

'... they decided to pool their children and teach them for themselves. The lucky children were to have one lesson a day, but it was to be given by the best specialist in Paris.' Who knows whether all those eminent scientists and artists were great teachers. The experiment didn't last:

'Unfortunately, however, parents have to be busy earning the family income and have no time to give their own children enchanting lessons.'

But this paragraph concludes with a sentence that I suspect was dear to Eleanor Doorly's heart. (She was a headmistress.)

'(The children) said in after-life that from those early lessons they learnt to like work, to be indifferent to money, and to be so independent that they were convinced that they could pull themselves out of any difficulty.'

Eleanor Doorly was an interesting woman. To some extent she was a woman of mystery, said by some (apparently, . . . maybe . . . ) to have served in the Special Operations Executive during WW2 and reputed to have spoken 7 languages. She was headmistress of the King's High School for Girls in Warwick from 1922 to 1944, but before that was Headmistress for nearly 7 years of the Twickenham County School for Girls, a tenure which ended in controversy after an encounter with a representative of the Girl Guides Association. You can read an excellent account of these events by Tom Barney on the Archives for London website, but, in short, Miss A Fradelle-Pratt, District Secretary of the Girl Guides for Twickenham requested of Miss Doorly that the Guides should be allowed to start a company in her school. Miss Doorly enquired about the Guide Promises. She had no problem with Honouring God and the King, or with Helping Others, but when it came to the Guide Law she was not happy. After this meeting, Miss Fradelle Pratt informed the Governors that, on being told that "A Guide follows orders" Miss Doorly "Made the very greatest objection to the teaching of obedience & said she did not permit of it being taught in the school – & therefore with her objection also of a uniform the idea of the Girl Guide Company could not be thought of."  

This is a wonderful scene. I suspect that the intelligent and extremely capable Miss Doorly allowed her disdain for Miss Fradelle-Pratt, and her dislike of militarism, to show through. This was, after all, just a few short years after the end of the war. 'Following orders' is not the same thing as 'being obedient' or, as we are more likely to say today, 'well-behaved'. How, in any case, would you 'teach obedience'? There's plenty of evidence that the girls in Miss Doorly's school were very well behaved, but Miss Doorly clearly did not suffer fools. The controversy cost her her job, but she appears to have found little difficulty in obtaining a new position.

I like to imagine a meeting between her and Madame Curie. I feel sure they would have had much in common.

The Twickenham controversy on Archives for London.

Draft Number ... by Joan Lennon 2 Nov 4:30 PM (2 days ago)

We'll all have Patrick Stewart in our thoughts just now and if I've managed to embed it properly,* here's a snippet of him helping the Count.

My difficulty at the moment is with drafts. Not, like the Count, with the first, but with the second. This is for a novel that I have brought out and put away again more times than I can remember as other things got in its way. This year I finally brought the first draft to a finish! 

It's a heady feeling. We say the words, 'It's only a first draft - of course, it's rubbish - but from here I can really work on it!' while in our hearts we are saying, 'This time I've done it - this time I've written the book perfectly from the get-go - this time... this time...'

Not this time. I would love to be able to say to Draft 2, 'Get yourself organised! Get yourself re-written! Make yourself better! Make it so!' But, yet again, I'll just have to do the bloody work.

I'm going in... 

* If I HAVEN'T done it properly, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNatvLe18ro

 

Joan Lennon website

Joan Lennon Instagram

AND ALL OF A SUDDEN, IT'S NOVEMBER? by Penny Dolan 31 Oct 5:00 PM (4 days ago)

October 2026 became busy, with an ‘Afternoon Tea in Queen Victoria’s Carriage’ on the Embsay Heritage Railway; an unexpected but welcome visit from ‘long-lost’ cousins, a day wandering the Walls of York with a friend, a fine film about the Life of Caravaggio, and an Azuma to Kings Cross and back, seeing dear family people. All the experiences very spirit lifting – and with a wonderfully empty week to look  forward to as well.

Better late? 29 Oct 11:57 PM (6 days ago)

Not that it represented a threat to world democracy, but I do apologise for missing my blog date of the 25th. The reason? I'm currently editing a book for a former manager. He hails from Japan, speaks good English but can't, as he very readily admits, write it.

Well, he can put the words down in English on paper, but what we end up with is something like this:

As he himself says, what emerges from his pen is Janglish, and it needs a proper English speaker and writer to knock it all into legible - and comprehensible state. So, for years now, I've been editing the short articles he writes for a blog and they've been hard work but also fun. I can manage one in three hours. They're also intended to be read online, so his initial drafts are far simpler in execution. Thus, easier to edit and polish.

This book, however, is on another plane. It's about Design and oh boy, people who work in Design often make incomprehensible French philosophers read like Enid Blyton. I was once asked by a departing colleague - from the same Design department - to write accounts of four projects she'd managed. She wanted her successor to be able to bring himself up to speed with what he was taking over. So I did, and she was happy and, so I heard later, was the successor.

So happy, in fact, that he thought one of the articles should be submitted to an academic Design journal. Off it went. And back it came, with the observation that, as interesting as the subject was, the text wasn't in a style befitting the journal. This translates as - and I've been backed up in this by others, so it's not just sour grapes on my part - it didn't read like an academic article. Or to put it bluntly, it was too easy to read. 

So I'm currently halfway through a tome about Design and it is HARD WORK. I can manage to 'translate' 5 pages a day, 3 days a week, and when I'm finished each day my brain feels as though it's been boiled in a vat with rusty cannon balls. And then poached.

And that's the reason I missed my October 25th date.

CREATIVITY -- PART OF BEING HUMAN by Sheena Wilkinson 28 Oct 9:00 PM (7 days ago)

‘If you can’t get another publishing deal,’ my husband said cheerily last week, ‘will you just stop writing?’ 

Ouch. Also no. I’ve been writing stories since I was eight and I’m now fifty-eight. Stories have always been how I make sense of the world. But I have always wanted readers. Little Sheena touted her stories around whoever would read them, and big Sheena’s exactly the same. As regular readers will know, I self-published the sequel to Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau. (Miss McVey Takes Charge, Writers Review Publishing, 2025) but I’d be lying if I said this would be my first choice in future. At the moment I have a book about to go on submission, an almost-complete first draft and an unexpected novel idea that will soon be at new-notebook -buying stage. And if I don’t get a publishing deal for any of them … well, I’ll worry about that another day.

MY ACTUAL BOTTOM DRAWER FULL OF WRITING PROJECTS

Recently, some friends and I have been chatting about the importance of creativity in our lives, and how we need to separate the joy of the writing from the not-always-joy of the publishing industry. We are all published writers though some, like me, are currently out of contract; most feel there's something missing in our lives when we aren't making something. Especially when, for whatever reason, we aren't writing. 

It doesn’t need to be with words. Emma Pass is an award-winning author, who can certainly knit magic with words, but she’s also become extremely nifty with yarn. ‘I taught myself to knit just before the Pandemic hit, and it's become one of my favourite things to do!’ Emma says. ‘However, I've consciously made the decision to keep it as a hobby and only make items for other people as gifts, rather than trying to sell pieces and turn it into a "side hustle". For me, it's a way to relax, and if it became a "job" I wouldn't enjoy it anymore.’ 

EMMA AND I KNITTING

Fellow novelist Rachel Ward has garnered quite a following on social media for her daily photographs. I’m not the only person whose morning is always brightened by one of her beautiful pictures of Bath. Rachel says, ‘I take photographs, paint and draw, and while I do sometimes sell and exhibit these, nowadays the point is very much to enjoy creating as an end in itself. With painting, I often deliberately choose a subject with colours that will nurture a good mood. It feels like bathing in colour and light, and is a real tonic, whatever the weather or whatever life is flinging at me that day.'

BLUE AND WHITE, AND ORANGE (RACHEL WARD)

I don’t have the talent of either Emma or Rachel, but I do love making things. Recently, when a good friend died, I wanted to buy her daughter a ‘Mrs Rabbit’ toy (from Peter Rabbit), but decided it would be more meaningful to make one. Now I am no seamstress, and although I own a sewing machine, I have not mastered its wily ways, so my Mrs Rabbit was made by hand, from scraps. She’s a bit rough and ready, but I know she meant more to my friend’s daughter than if I had simply gone out and bought a mass-produced toy. 

MRS RABBIT

In the past few years I've joined the local Women's Institute. Apart from making friends in a new place, it's helped to reconnect me with that love of creating things. The WI actively encourages creativity through its celebration, not only of traditional home crafts, but of music, drama, the spoken word, and other activities. 

MONEYMORE WI'S ENTRY IN THE BELFAST AUTUMN FAIR -- SO MUCH CREATIVITY

Last week I visited the National Museum of Ireland's Museum of Country Life in County Mayo. This collection highlights the everyday objects people made and used throughout centuries of (mostly rural) life. Many of these things were necessities – baskets, small boats, furniture, tools – but all are characterised by attention to detail and form following function – which is surely at the heart of all good design. These sturdy objects reminded me that, even in the harshest times, in societies where the focus is purely on survival, humans have always expressed their creativity. A tin lamp was functional, but also beautifully carved. Fishermen’s Aran sweaters were warm and water repellent, but their patterns, as well as being unique to each clan and therefore a useful means of identifying a body washed ashore, were intricate and intrinsically beautiful, and in turn influenced by ancient Celtic patterns, with their own symbolism. We have always told stories, made music and art, as a way of making sense of, and sometimes expanding, our worlds.

That’s one of the many reasons why some people’s desire to use AI to ‘make’ a picture, a story or a song is so baffling. Apart from the serious ethical and environmental issues, why would someone not want to make the thing themselves? It’s a fundamental human need. I want my books to be published and to do well, because I made them, grew them from an idea, nurtured and wrestled them through multiple messy drafts to finished book. It’s the process that gives value to the product. 

A COLLAGE I MADE AT A RECENT WRITING COURSE WITH JEN ALEXANDER -- THIS HAS SPARKED A WHOLE NOVEL IDEA

And the process is what we need as humans. Indeed, creating – anything from a loaf of bread to a sonnet – is partly what makes us human.  

Warne's Adventure Book For Girls - by Sue Purkiss 22 Oct 9:00 PM (13 days ago)

I was doing a bit of sorting out in the hut recently, and came across this book, gathering spiders' webs in a corner. It's called Warne's Adventure Book for Girls. It has no date, (nor is the illustrator credited) but I'm guessing it was published in the early 1930s. (Frederick Warne and Co. were the publishers of Beatrix Potter's books, and later of the Observer series of beautifully illustrated non-fiction books.) I think I may have got it from the big second-hand book shop in Dulverton, Exmoor, just down the road from Seven Fables, the jewel of a book shop which has close links with Jackie Morris and specialises in nature books.

Halloween thoughts - by Rowena House 20 Oct 4:00 PM (15 days ago)

A post about different approaches to non-fiction as art gave me a fresh perspective about my seventeenth-century witch trial work-in-progress this month, and how unknowable historical facts blended with memoir in a type of speculative writing that is both fiction and something else.

The article was by Sean Glatch, an American educator and writer whom I’ve quoted here before. I’ve put the link at the end because it’s rather long.

In it he says, ‘Speculative nonfiction describes nonfiction that heavily incorporates speculative elements ... It’s kind of like educated guessing. The writer uses what they know to guess at what they don’t, using invention, wondering, and speculation to uncover deeper truths.’

Drop the ‘non’ before ‘fiction’ in this quote and that’s what I’ve been doing for the past six years or so, uncovering what I think is a deeper truth within a witch trial pamphlet: that is, it takes serious critical thinking to reject the orthodoxy of one’s times, so I shouldn’t be too quick to judge the pamphleteer who inspired my protagonist.

This echoes the last post by Mr. Glatch which I quoted here in August about the generated idea within a story: something inspires you to write it, but then you discover something else.

For me, the something else was how good our brains are at forming and holding onto irrational beliefs. When those beliefs are backed by the force of religion, political orthodoxy, and social norms, it takes courage and a lot critical thinking to reject them. 

 

I tested this hypothesis against my own past experience as an economics journalist working within powerful media and governmental organisations. For example: orthodox western economics insists that growth is a social good – the ‘right’ way for people and countries to escape poverty – regardless of the fact that it also exhausts irreplaceable natural resources like forests or fossil fuels, doing irreparable harm to the physical world on which we as a species depend for our survival.

Rational? I think not. Point that out, though, and you’re some kind of eco-freak.

Point out that a ‘witch’s’ cat or dog isn’t a demon conduit for the devil’s power and you’re also out of a job, right?

There is no way of knowing if the real pamphleteer on whom I based my character sincerely believed in witchcraft, nor if the trial judges did, or the jury that heard the cases, or the original pamphlet’s readers, or the poor souls who went to the gallows for impossible crimes.

But as Halloween approaches and witchy things are a bit of fun – or grounds for a feminist retelling of a shameful period in our history, one that tragically echoes in too many parts of the world today – I do hope people will also think about superstition rationally, and false beliefs in general.



Link to 'Making Art from Life' by Sean Glatch

https://writers.com/feature/making-art-from-life?ck_subscriber_id=1593143874&utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Making+Art+from+Life+-+23709393&fbclid=IwY2xjawVEcdxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mAXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR7KEhVZyeKeDniR0rX7EJ-wE_QBgxeaeCUIKDzX0ppOQ2FzGLGk3EHMZEql_Q_aem_rQ3HiCb3M1lzpbabFWDdKw

Rethinking the old hag - by Lu Hersey 19 Oct 1:00 AM (17 days ago)

 I've been on holiday in Cornwall this week and completely forgot to write today's blog post. So this is a hasty update on one I wrote a couple of years ago, very suitable for the upcoming Halloween, or season of the witch...

When you think of the word 'hag', what image does it conjure in your mind? The wicked, nightmare crone of fairy tales, probably. But in reality, throughout most of history, by my age I'd be classified as a hag. It's a word defined by most dictionaries as 'an ugly, old and unpleasant woman'. Only a reasonably supportive bra and good modern dentistry saves me (and even then, I probably fit the bill). 

During the notorious witch trials, a high proportion of the women strangled and burnt at the stake as witches were simply old, post-menopausal women. Toothless and wrinkly, no longer of any interest to men, unable to easily support themselves financially, and often with only a cat for company. Ostracised by society, they were more likely to voice their opinions freely (the modern version would be giving fewer fucks). Frankly, I fit at least two of those categories. I'd have been strangled and burnt, for sure.

Even today, old women garner very little respect in society. No matter what knowledge or wisdom they've gained from being around for so long, once they don't look great, they're largely ignored. It's still OK to treat them with contempt. I recently read former gynaecologist Adam Kay's autobiography, This is Going to Hurt - in which he devotes at least half a chapter to his intense dislike of doing operations on older women, in detail. No sensitivity reader needed, apparently. Old women, like people with ginger hair, are still fair game for society's derision and snide remarks.

Of course old men don't look great either, but far fewer were burnt as witches simply because they were cantankerous, old and ugly. No one derides them for having age related prostate problems or wrinkly old bollocks. And they can still garner respect for some reason, however nasty they might be. Look at Rupert Murdoch (to name but one...)

Anyway, to get to the point - isn't it time we change society's attitude to old women? We need to portray a society where old women aren't all blood-thirsty, embittered old hags who want to cook children and render their fat down to make mysterious potions. (Although I wouldn't want to entirely exclude this kind of activity - after all, it is coming up to halloween.) But we need positive portrayals in children's stories, alongside the evil hag. Include old women simply as people who've been around a long time and have seen a great deal - who might even be able to tell you something life changing. A nugget of invaluable information that transforms your future. Whatever. I try to include at least one in every book I write.

And that's the end of my rant for today. Now pass my broomstick, I'm going out.

PS I write a substack called An Old Hag's Snippets of Folklore, Myth and Magic - in case you're interested. And I have a Patreon account called Writing the Magic on a similar theme. I like to repeat myself :)

One more time? By Steve Way 16 Oct 7:30 PM (19 days ago)

 

Hi. I hope you don’t mind indulging me one more time. I’m wondering if this is becoming an addiction…

 

A few more signs…
BORDEAUX   Where water doesn’t have enough to occupy itself.	SEVILLE   Train station twined with Paddington.
BERLIN   Visit the naturist commune managed by Lyn.	BERLIN   Come a see the bears queuing up for breakfast at the city zoo.
PATAGONIA   (Gonias also like being stroked.)	You’ve been to RIYADH Why not visit WRHYTHNG
HAMSTERDAM   Where hamsters go to chill out….	HAMSTERDAM   Holding back the hamster invasion…
And some more limericks…
There was a girl from New York, Completely addicted to pork, She gave her doctors a fright, By eating it day and night, So they set about stealing her fork.	There once was a lady called Lynne, Who ran a bar in Dublin, She went out of business I fear, For she refused to serve beer, Citing drinking a sin.
Larry the Number 10 cat, Is ‘mouser’ to PMs short, tall or fat, One didn’t like pets, And refused him the vets, So Larry just pooed in his hat.	Larry the ‘mouser’, Ran up the PMs trouser, Negotiation stopped it seemed, As the PM loudly screamed, (Though the Commons was none the wiser.)
A Welshman visited France, And found himself in a dance, The ‘Moulin’ girls were amused, The audience looked on bemused, While he whirled around in a trance.	A Scotsman by the name of Harris, Decided once to visit Paris, For a very silly bet, He ate ten tons of Crêpes Suzette, And thereby did himself embarrass.
A silly man from Amsterdam, Invented a potato jam! On toast it tasted rank and vile, Making people run a mile! But… it was quite nice with ham!?!
Then some road signs…
ZIMBABWE WAY	GOA WAY
CHESTER-LE-STREET STREET	LONG AND WINDING AVENUE Leading to ROCKY CLOSE
LOVER’S LANE Leading to CALL-IT-OFF-CLOSE	HELL >   Please follow the diversions while we repair the Good Intentions Causeway (we’ve been meaning to get round to it for ages.)
Registry Office >   < Solicitors Office	LOIS LANE
DIVERSION      à	ART GALLERY
Finally, you can’t blame a lad for dreaming…
STEVE WAY WAY

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the ‘Real Story’ series, we find out that our heroine should really be referred to as ‘The Princess who does PE’. Also how Goldie Lock gets on in the Bear’s house as she’s being trained to be a reluctant thief by her parents. We also discover what happens when the Dumpty family roll into town as part of the food circus and how the plan of The Three ‘Blind’ Mice to play a trick on the farmer’s wife nearly goes wrong. Little Billy Goat Gruff tricks his friends into believing that an ogre is guarding the gate leading to the delicious green field, so they need to hide while he deals with the situation… and then discovers the awful truth… Finally, The Grand Old Duke of York needs help from the impending invasions by The Grand Young Duke of Oldham and The Grand Middle-Aged Duke of Newcastle. His soppy men will be no use after marching up and down hills… he needs the support of some hardened fishermen from Scarborough, who recommend knitting as a form of defence…

Gruffalo Granny, written by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart 14 Oct 3:30 PM (21 days ago)

 

I'm a Granny, and I was given this for my birthday by a small grandchild. Could this one possibly be up to Gruffalo standard of brilliance, I wondered? I opened it with some trepidation, and started to read it to two year old Finlay. The rhyming text of course rollicks along beautifully, and the story, more complex than The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child, kept Finlay captivated throughout. 'Read it again', was his response!

In proper Gruffalo style, this is another story based on a tale of clever trickery,. This time its  Scheherazade's trick of keeping her would-be killer at bay by telling, but not completing, stories each night. Gruffalo and daughter have caught Mouse, intending to cook Mouse Stew for Granny. Can Mouse keep delaying them with stories long enough to survive? I think you can guess the answer to that! But there's a funny and satisfying twist when they serve-up Vegetable rather than Mouse Soup for Granny Gruffalo. And then there is a bonus twist that delightfully suggests that maybe Julia Donaldson herself is Gruffalo Granny!

A book to engage and excite young fans of all the Donaldson/Scheffler picture books, but this would be a tricky introductory book to those delights. It assumes recognition and knowledge of the Snail and the Whale, Monkey Puzzle, and Room on the Broom stories which get partially told here but not completed. So, a fun game of other story spotting for aficionados, but confusing for those not in the know.

Lucky me, I got to sit close to Julia Donaldson and hear her read this story to a large marquee full of excited fans, and I can report that the queue for buying and having the book signed was huge. It's a winner!  

WRITING FOLKLORE: Mermaids 8 Oct 4:00 PM (27 days ago)

 Mermaids can still make a splash in children's literature.

Being brought up in a seaside town meant I often stood on the beach, looking beyond the waves and imagining another world beneath the sea.

It wasn't hard to feel there must be a secret world of shell-studded caves and watery underwater castles. Mermaids fitted right into those daydreams. A beautiful creature with a shimmering tail may have been looking right back at me or peeping shyly from a colourful rock pool.

So seeing the attraction in children's books was an easy step. Mermaids are magical beings - part human, part otherworldly.

Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid was a favourite childhood book.

Members' News October 6 Oct 10:00 PM (29 days ago)

Out of Date by Paul May 3 Oct 9:00 PM (last month)

It is incredible how fast children's books can become dated, especially if they're realistic fiction with a contemporary setting. 25 years ago I wrote a short football novel that referenced Michael Owen and held up Brazil as the team that exemplified a style of football that's now more associated with Spain. I wrote my first books when mobile phones were a novelty and there was still a phone tethered in the hallway in most houses. I always did my best to avoid writing dialogue in imitation of contemporary slang because I knew how that would seem out of date by the time the book was published, but I had no idea how fast the world would change. I see now why children's writers love fantasy and historical fiction.

An adult reader will pick up a John Le Carré novel and they'll recognize a past they've lived through. They won't be puzzled by characters having to visit a library or an archive to find information that today is available in a couple of clicks; they'll understand that, in a crisis, the hero can't just whip out a phone and call for help - they'll have to find a phone box, they'll need money . . . Jason Reynolds said in his film Dear Dreamer that he thought if his books were still being read forty years from now, 'I've failed.'

'Forty years from now we ain't figured out new books yet? Language is living, it's growing, it's changing, it's evolving . . . Books have to do the exact same thing in order for me to see eye to eye with the young people.'

Jason Reynolds isn't worried about his books dating because he wants young people to be reading new books all the time. Well, he probably doesn't want them reading the new stuff ALL the time, but it does mean he doesn't have to worry about being out of date. And there might come a time, but who knows when that will be, when 'out-of-date' turns into 'vintage' and then into 'classic'. And sometimes, even in realistic contemporary fiction, writers manage to nail something universal in their characters, or something so appealing in their stories, that their books never go out of print, no matter how dated they seem. I'm thinking of Noel Streatfeild or Arthur Ransome for example.

Maybe it'a a bit like the way you don't worry too much about a word you don't know if the plot's propelling you forward or you're desperately involved with the fortunes of a favourite character. Then you won't stop to worry about why they haven't made that phone call or sent that message.

Jason Reynolds has a point though. Everything these days is so instant and young people are tuned in to a constantly changing stream of information. Books are so slow. They're out of date before you've even finished writing them. It can take years to get from the first idea to the published book, and the potential readers of your book might not even be born when you have that first idea.

Thank You to Bookmarks - Joan Lennon 2 Oct 4:30 PM (last month)

If you're like me, the whole thing of going cold into a bookshop and saying to the person behind the counter, 'Hi, I'm X and I've written a book called Y and I'd be happy, um, you know, to sign any copies you... have... um, er... I brought my own pen...' while they stare, blank-faced at best, deeply suspicious at worst,* and the hot flush rises to your hairline, isn't fun.

This is where having bookmarks come in. Instead of staring at you, for a few moments they're staring at the bookmarks and the picture of the cover is right there, saying 'Look at me - I'm legit!' A few moments during which they just might journey back from the foothills of disdain, start checking on the computer and possibly crack a smile. If they don't have a copy, you can still be Lady Munificent and give them some bookmarks. And if they DO have a copy that they produce for you to sign, well, you've got your own pen.

Revolution! 12 Seismic Shifts that Changed the World! by Joan Lennon, illustrated by Teo Georgiev, published by Templar Books

*This is more of a big book chain kind of response. The little independents warm up way quicker!

Joan Lennon website

Joan Lennon Instagram

THURSDAY 1ST OCTOBER - and it's NATIONAL POETRY DAY 2026 ! 30 Sep 6:01 AM (last month)

    Hooray! Thursday 1st October, is POETRY DAY 2006 . . . 

. . . a date the National Literacy Trust has chosen for exploring poetry in all its forms, a day for celebrating all rhymes and rhyming picture books in Storytimes, for re-reading and sharing familiar poems they have enjoyed before, discovering new poems and new voices, and even writing poetry and sharing their work and thoughts with others. 

This year's National Poetry Day is WONDER AND LOCAL COMMUNITY, a theme that invites students to explore the world around them them, to consider all the people, the places, the stories and the moments that make their environment unique.

The National Reading Agency offers a great online collection of poetry resources, all chosen to support the writing, reading and performing of poetry in schools, all designed to showcase poetry as a way for students to grow in confidence, creativity, empathy and self expression, and a language form that can easily be accessible to all students, whatever their age, and hopefully for more than a single day. 

In fact, at the end of the month, between 2-6 November, comes Young Poets Week, with the Young Laureate scheme offering some schools and pupils free poetry resources, online masterclasses and all sorts of ways of playing with words and poetry. For information on the new Young Laureate scheme, go to https://literacytrust.org.uk/writing-for-pleasure/poetry

Naturally, this is the time of the year when publishers highlight poetry books for schools. Among titles I've come across are 'Cosy Poems', Gaby Morgan's anthology for 11+ students, and Attie Lime's 'Poems on Toast' for KS2 children. Michael Rosen's website has videos of the poet performing his own poems, of course. My choice for the youngest children, though not strictly 'poetry', would probably be a rhyming picture book, such Rosen & Helen Oxenbury's charming 'Oh Dear, Look What I Got!', or a book I heard again recently: Kes Gray & Jim Field's very first 'Oi Frog!'

                                    Do you have any titles to suggest?

                       Happy National Poetry Day! 

Penny Dolan

Two writers in one house?! by Sheena Wilkinson 28 Sep 8:00 PM (last month)

This week I played a part in a book launch, standing onstage, telling the audience -- and it was a packed house -- about this wonderful book they should all buy and would certainly enjoy. No, it wasn't my own book this time. This book, Punters on Tour: Around Ireland in 26 Racecourses is by my husband, Seamus Hynds. So now we are two writers in one house! 

the latest literary power couple? (photo: Raphael Mason)

Will we suddenly become like Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard? Leonard and Virginia Woolf? Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath? I don't think there's any danger of that -- Seamus has always said it would be 'one and done', whereas I can't imagine ever stopping writing. 

this is what it's all about

Back in 2016, when we were just pals, Seamus, a massive fan of horse racing, told me of his plans to visit every racecourse in Ireland and write a book about it. Now when you’re a writer, as many readers of this blog are, people are always telling you about the book they’re going to write. Most of the time you never hear another word about it. But Seamus is a man of his word and, by the start of 2019, after a major life event (being widowed) he tentatively shared a few chapters with me, knowing that, as a very honest person and a professional writer, I would give him helpful feedback. 

the finished book -- cover design by Emma Pass

What he didn't know was that by then, I'd started to fall for him, so I was terribly nervous reading those first chapters. I knew I'd find it hard to be in love with someone whose writing wasn't good! The fact that we've now been married for almost five years should tell you all you need to know about the quality of the book.

 

The Company of Writers 24 Sep 9:30 PM (last month)

Just over a year ago, a member of the Society of Authors who lives in Amsterdam, thought it might be a good idea to bring other Netherlands-residing members together. More than 30 people turned up, and not all of them from Amsterdam, but from all over the country. It was a lovely, convivial encounter and one that has led to more. 

We now meet once a month or so. The numbers have dropped off since that initial get-together and are now confined – mainly – to people who live in, or near, Amsterdam. (There’s talk of holding a meeting in another city, in a bid to relieve the capital bias.) At most, 10 or so people attend. And they’re not all writers of fiction. We have translators, educational writers, journalists, writers of guide books, historians. A good, wide mix. (I’m the only writer of fiction for children.)

There’s no fixed setting. Last week, we met in an old, converted warehouse next to the water. It's now shared work spaces.

And they've left the gloriously worn-down staircases.

Nor is there a fixed agenda. Recently, Ben Coates was invited to come along to talk to us. About his work, his research, his juggling both with family life. (He’s the author of – among others – How the Dutch are Different, which is a terrific read even if you don’t know a thing about the country.) A month from now, we’ll be talking about fantasy fiction. At other times, we just meet to chat and swap stories.

What I enjoy most about the group is the chance to talk to people who ‘get it’.* Who understand about cranky publishers, being ghosted, struggling with the taxman. Who don’t need to be told about how hard it can be confronting that empty page. We all write, and we know what it’s like, and that shared experience is something I find both enjoyable and encouraging. I leave every meeting feeling better. More optimistic. It’s a great feeling.

*The SASSIES get it too. I don’t deny that. But you’re almost all in the UK and as much as I enjoy following you on Facebook and here on the blog, I do miss the chance to just talk. In person.

An Ordinary Man - by Sue Purkiss 22 Sep 9:00 PM (last month)

 

 

In my book, recently published by Writers Review, the hero, Harry Pilgrim, was captured back in May 1940 on the way to Dunkirk. By this time - the end of September - he is in a POW camp in Poland, in what is now called Torun but which was then known by its German name, Thorn.

He, and many others, reached the camp after a punishing march across the north of France in the summer heat. They were given very little food: they slept in the open, occasionally in barns. If you couldn't keep going, you were shot. They didn't know where they were going or what was going to happen to them. They eventually reached Trier, in Germany, where the streets were lined with scarlet banners emblazoned with swastikas and the people jeered and pelted them with stones and rotten vegetables. Then they were crammed into cattle trucks and entrained to Poland.

Much later, when things were more organised, their families would be notified where they were, and they would begin to receive letters from home and Red Cross parcels which would augment their meagre rations. They would be sent out on work parties - some of which weren't too bad: my father, on whom Harry is very loosely based, really quite enjoyed working as a forester.

But for now, there was nothing to do, except to sit around and wonder just how it was that they'd ended up here - wherever 'here' was.

My father - and Harry - came from Ilkeston, an industrial town between Derby and Nottingham. His father, who had worked at Stanton Ironworks, died of lung disease when Dad was about 14, which was also when he left school, leaving a wife and six children - five girls and Dad, the second youngest. They were a close family. The older girls were already working and bringing in money, which was just as well, because there was no other money coming in.  Dad worked in a coal yard - there were lots of pits around - eventually graduating to driving a lorry. When the war started and he joined up, that's what he did - drove a lorry in the Royal Army Service Corps.

When I began to work on this book, it really struck me what a culture shock the war must have been for a twenty year-old who had never been further from home than on a church trip to Blackpool. Would he even have known where Poland was? Would he have had any idea what had led to the war - apart, of course, from what he'd seen on news reels at the cinema? (To which, in any case, as the son of an evangelical family, he was not supposed to go.)

What a setting in which to do his growing up. But there he was, as were so many others, for five years.

He came through. But not without scars.

To find out more about Harry and what happened to him, you can find the book here.

And to all those of you who have read the book already, and sent kind messages or written reviews - thank you!

The creative writing PhD is all but done, so what’s next? - Rowena House 20 Sep 4:00 PM (last month)

On the Monday this post is published on ABBA, I’ll be trying [again] to upload my completed creative writing doctoral thesis to the university website and saying goodbye to a big phase of my writing life. 

Hurrah! But also, oh heck.

The future just uncurled, stretched, and looked me in the eye.

So, what’s next? Another novel? Non-fiction? Different adventures entirely? It’s too soon to know, but that’s okay; thinking time is a big part of decision-making.

When I started to write this post yesterday, I focused on the past, trying to express some sort of preliminary judgement about the overall value [and downside] of writing an historical novel in my particular academic setting.

One thing I can say with confidence is that the university’s formal reporting requirements and supervisor feedback kept me going through tough patches. After an intense month completing the thesis, it also felt as if the seventeenth-century witch trial manuscript was the main output of the past six-and-a-half years.

The story is now a respectable 80,700 words, having been cut back circa 7K words in the latest edit over this summer, with 1K +/- new words added. Whether this is the version I’ll query agents with is yet to be seen. I’m hoping to find the stamina for a read-through on the iPad where I can’t fiddle with it. On the laptop, I can’t help but edit. It may need professional editing, but I’ll probably test the agent waters first.

However...

This morning I remembered that the critical commentary that accompanies academic creative writing is also a significant output. As are six-and-a-half years’ worth of ABBA posts, mostly honest snapshots of that month’s ups and downs. Together with Facebook diary entries and dozens of notebooks, that’s a lot of data.

Within this data, I have made many useful discoveries, like where exactly the creative process mostly happened: first, when planning via synopses templates [which I’ve written about often here before] and second, AFTER a planned scene got rejected by my inner editor-critic in the act of typing it.

While these scene setbacks were frustrating at the time, they were also the moments when the imagination worked hardest, and not just consciously: by asking the subconscious to consider why a plan hadn’t worked, creative epiphanies happened.

Or at least, pre-dawn musings on why I couldn’t move forward.

These early morning ‘thought-edits’ became a kind of auto-workshop, where the inner editor-critic negotiated with the planner-craftswoman and more intuitive [and more elusive] creator-artist. It happened a lot over the past month, during the intensive final phase of editing. This morning, for example, the five am slot reminded me of an idea that I wrote about here [or on Facebook or in a notebook] years ago: my process notes might make a book. Write, Think, Create or something more gentle and English.

It’s well known that mistakes are better learning opportunities that happy successes, so looking back honestly should illustrate where I went wrong and what, if anything, fixed it. An example is planning synopses, which in the early years I felt convinced were the secret to nailing the story. I blush at this from my ABBA post in May 2022 about John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story: 

"Among its many excellent features is a recommendation that rather than developing the main character arc from its beginning, better to plot backwards from the protagonist’s psychological self-revelation near the end. Intuitively, I wanted this to be ‘right’, partly because I’ve conspicuously failed to make progress by starting the current seventeenth century witch trial work-in-progress with Chapter 1."

That turned out to be nonsense. Plotting backwards didn’t work. The story evolved in the writing: start, plod forward, fail, start again. Sure, I needed a plan; without one, I waffled. In the end, what these synopses provided was direction, a theoretical map of where the story could go. Where it went proved to be more intuitive – but I needed a plan to divert from. No wonder it’s taken six years. But it’s good to recognise paradoxes and take comfort from irony, right?

Anyway, more nonsense from May 2022: 

"For most of this year I’ve been using template synopses to outline the WIP, including (at last) a full Story Grid for the protagonist’s A-plot, plus the detailed backstory of his wound and its implications, thrashed out during Jeff Lyons’ intensive Anatomy of a Premise Line online course. Truby, then, is the third leg of this stool: a way to check my workings before moving on.”

Oh, the confidence! OK, knowing an emotional wound might need healing was useful for the protagonist’s character arc, but again it was the writing, not planning, that led me to his psychological weakness and its consequent moral flaw.

Another howler from May 2022:

“Proof that [synopsis-based plotting] is helpful for subplots as well came this morning when I was reviewing my preliminary notes about Truby for this post, and suddenly found myself in the middle of the spontaneous creation of the best working outline of Beth's B-plot I’ve managed in two long years.”

I spiked Beth entirely as a point-of-view character in 2024. Sigh.

So, which writing guru would I go back to if there is another novel? All of them! Truby especially. His equation Weakness x Action = Change remains the single most useful thing I’ve ever read about character-led story development.

Truby also insists there can only be one core action per story. Luke FIGHTS to defeat the empire. My pamphleteer WRITES his way out of brutal group-think about witches. Whether or not any publisher picks up this manuscript, it’s internal coherence as a story is largely due to Truby’s equation.

Another constant in all these years of revision was James Scott Bell’s advice in Write Your Novel From the Middle. Deciding on a midpoint crisis and ‘mirror moment’ of deep self-reflection for the protagonist was the most critical milestone of this project. With this one pivotal scene in place – a gruesome one, as befits a story about injustice – the plot had a structure, even if the exact route to and from that moment remained fluid.

[As late as this August, I cut out the ‘mirror moment’ when the protagonist articulated his big change of heart. I trust a reader will get that it without me spelling it out.]

So, my current verdict on using synopses to plan? They’re invaluable testing grounds for ideas, but not story templates. If X doesn’t work, go back to the synopses and explore the consequences of Y without necessarily rejecting what came before or what had been plotted to happen next. Frankly, I can’t imagine how to write a story without them.

Had I picked a different ABBA post to compare ‘now’ with ‘then’, no doubt I’d be writing a different conclusion. Every post will have a story to tell. Hence Write. Think. Create. Or not. 

Meanwhile, yesterday’s pre-dawn debate yielded one firm decision: to attend the annual Folly Farm gathering of the Scattered Authors Society in January 2027. It’s been so tempting to go in recent years, but by New Year the retreat budget was always spent and the tax man was knocking. Now, I’ve got a big decision to take, HMRC can shove off for once.

What’s next? I’ve set Folly Farm as the time and the place to decide.

 Rowena House Author on Facebook.

Beauty in decay - by Lu Hersey 18 Sep 4:00 PM (last month)

This year has spun by, despite the never-ending cold, wet January and the bake-us-all-alive summer - and here we are at the autumn equinox already. A brief point of balance in the year, when night and day are of equal length. It always makes me think of TS Eliot's Four Quartets (even though I never really understood them) and a few lines of Burnt Norton that resonate:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

The signs are there By Steve Way 16 Sep 7:30 PM (last month)

 Hi, I hope all is good with all of you. It's been that crazy beginning of term time again, so I haven't made time to write something more substantial (presuming I ever write anything substantial!) so I'm sharing some more sill signs and limericks that I doodled down in amongst tasks. I hope you enjoy them!

BATH Can you take a hint? A shower would do…	Now you’ve been to STONEHENGE Why not visit BEATLEHENGE?
DORSET So we can’t get in or out, unfortunately…	CHESTER Somewhere great to buy furniture.
MEDWAY A great place to rest on a long journey.	DORCHESTER Even more stock available than in Chester!
COVENTRY Visit the tree popular with witches.	MANCHESTER For all your specifically masculine furniture requirements.
COVENTRY Where you’ll always find someone to talk to. (If you’re already here, no one can send you here.)	WINCHESTER Wardrobes to be won every week!
Coventry Riding School Yes, we’ve heard that suggestion hundreds of times…	Welcome to the city of EN-SUITE ‘Even posher than Bath’.
Welcome to CIRENCESTER A noisy place	Welcome to SWAFHAM A town largely free of flies.
Welcome to the city of BILBOA A magnificent city with much to offer but with absolutely no connection with ‘The Hobbit’.	Welcome to the city of BATH Soak in the sights.
Godalming v. a harmless but pointless activity involving turnips (M.Eng) ‘Verily we went a Godalming amongst the turnip fields’ Shakespeare The lost plays
There was a daft fellow from York, Who travelled to Leeds on a stork, The problem he found, When reaching the ground, Was losing the power to walk.	There was a young man from Leeds, Perpetrator of nefarious deeds, Pleading ‘not guilty’ at court, The witnesses thought, He’s done for however he pleads.
There once was a girl from Dunblane, Who hiccupped again and again, Her mum tried a scare, By releasing a bear, Before realising her idea insane.	There once was a huge man from Maine, Who suffered a curious pain, When asked where it hurt, He pulled up his shirt, Where he’d clearly been hit by – a train!
An inept inventor from Rhyl, ‘Invented’ a curative  pill, He went on to say, ‘forget RNA’, For my cure-all is here to stay’. But doctors use RNA still.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liliana the Strong, written by Quentin Blake, illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart 14 Sep 3:30 PM (last month)

What a delight of a book! No earnest message imparted, just the joyful idea of a small child able lift and toss a whale, bend iron girders, stop a steamroller about to squash a crowd of people, simply told and beautifully, joyfully illustrated. A book to release both laughs and imaginations. A book that I'm giving to a particularly determined very small person in my own life!

New ways with old dead things - Anne Rooney 12 Sep 11:24 PM (last month)

 

And then you get down to work. You bump into reality. The book as you exactly want it comes to a number of pages that can't be accommodated, like 77 or 109. Do you pad it out to 96 or 128 or cut it down to 64 or 96? And your book is a new concept. Publishers prefer things which are a familiar concept even though they say they are looking for the next new thing. They're really looking for the next new take on an old thing. How are you going to explain it without rambling on for longer than their attention span? I'm obviously getting old and jaded as these issues occur to me earlier in the process than is healthy. I don't want them to kill my enthusiasm for the shiny new thing. I try to ignore them and hope the page extent will somehow fix itself further down the line and I will suddenly be blessed with astonishing explanatory and marketing skills.

Wiwaxia, 520 million years ago, stained glass 2026

This is actually my second time with this New Thing. No sooner had I started it in spring when I had a couple of new commissions which took over that bit of time and headspace. But now I'm back with my old dead things, and my book that spans 500 million years. And back with my paper database that is part of the I-didn't-use-AI paper trail, should it be necessary to show that [sigh]. Autumn is a good time for a new project.  The black squirrels squabble outside, and often on top of, my garden office, the rain (at last!) drums on the roof, and escaping to the house would mean getting wet so I'll stay a bit longer. The light filters through the trees and then through the stained glass hanging in the windows, and as the stained glass is all of extinct animals it's just further encouragement. Give these old dead guys their moment in the sun again. Or the rain. I add 'rain' to the artwork notes. 

 

Anne Rooney

website
bluesky

Out now: Science Museum 2027 Space Annual

 

Members' News September Special Edition 7 Sep 10:00 PM (last month)

 Hot on the heels of the last September round-up, come two more pieces of celebratory book news. Do check them out.

SOMETHING IN THE DARKNESS by John Doherty, illustrated by Matt Schu, is a spine-tingling treat for 3-5 year-olds. Packed with suspense, this unputdownable story will keep young readers on the edge of their seats, eventually revealing that some things are more frightening in the darkness than they are in the light.  

Published 17th September from Post Wave Children's Books.

SPOOKY STREET by Jonathan Emmet with illustrations by Ingela P Arrhenius is a spooktacular, rhyming lift-the-flap alphabet book that is also a play scene and a Halloween frieze to decorate your room! 

Published by Nosy Crow on September 10th.

Congratulations, both!

Members' News September 6 Sep 10:30 PM (last month)

The long, hot summer is finally over and we can look forward to huddling under blankets to write, and the Scattered Authors winter retreat in January - there are still places available so get in touch if you're interested.

This month we're celebrating the publication of three books and a special edition. Please do take a look at them and give them a shout-out on your social media. If you have anything you'd like included in October's round-up, send the details to Claire Fayers.

Congratulations, Michelle Lovric, whose new adult novel comes out on October 8th, from Salt Publishing. 

Michelle is the much-loved author of The Book of Human Skin and a former Women’s Prize nominee. Known for her lyrical prose, dark wit and impeccable historical detail, she now turns her gaze to Venice in 1817 – a city of intrigue, revolution and romance.

In The Puffin, a disfigured traitor, a revolutionary milliner, a sadistic assassin – and, yes, a puffin – become entangled in a plot to ransom a Habsburg princess. The result is a heady mix of radical lovers, poets, smugglers and spies. By turns thrilling, tender and gloriously eccentric, it is historical fiction at its most seductive.

Full details here

Sue Purkiss's first novel for adults has just been released by Writers' Review Publishing. An Ordinary War, is loosely based on her father's experiences as a prisoner of war, after being captured on the way to Dunkirk. Our hero Harry Pilgrim encounters cruelty, near starvation and betrayal - but also lasting friendship and even love. 

Publisher link

Next, a book for younger readers. Yvonne Banham's third book for young adults, Delores Mackenzie and the Dead of Winter, will be published by Firefly Press on October 8th.

The third in the Delores MacKenzie series sees Delores facing her greatest challenge yet, chasing beyond the Arctic Circle in search of a mysterious book, a legend and a killer.

Publisher link

Cover: Nathan Collins

Finally, my own Welsh Giants, Ghosts and Goblins from Firefly Press is getting a special limited edition for Christmas. The larger format hardback has a bonus Christmas goblins story, ribbon bookmark, and every story has a new illustration by Becka Moor. 

Publisher link

Cover: Becka Moor

Congratulations to everyone celebrating this month.

Claire