Well, I made it to Phnom Penh. Talk about culture shock! Siem Reap is a sleepy village compared to this. But the best way to show you - and to experience it -- is from the back seat of a tuk tuk. But first a story....as I sat there, I held my camcorder up and...

The Anjali House Literary Magazine entitled "Wonderful Words: Imagination is Our Best Power" is now launched.  Tonight was the party celebrating our work together and it was such an overwhelming experience, I'm really at a loss for words.  So much for being a writer. ...

I've just gotten back from my last day of working with the kids.  I know I've said it before, but I just can't believe it's over.  I may have written an entire novel about time (that's my first book, Tangled Roots, for those of you who may not know it), but I still...

So here's the bad news -- my week with the children of Anjali House is halfway over.  I can't believe how fast it is going.  The kids are fantastic. The ones I am working with are in the "Young Adult" group, between 15 and 19.  They are so similar to kids...

It is a short and east flight from Bangkok to Siem Reap, but it meant a world of difference to me.  I fell in love with Cambodia five years ago -- almost to the day.  And as I touched down onto Cambodian soil, I knew that love was really still there.  How and why...

When I was planning my trip, I knew there would be many intensely active days, and I especially knew that my time in Siem Reap would be very busy, so I decided to give myself a few extra days in Bangkok to time adjust, relax and sightsee.  It was definitely the right...

Today was the big event in Bangkok, my presentation at the Nielsen Hays Library.  It's a beautiful place with a long history.  My friend, Jenny, is very active there and worked hard to get the event organized.  She was nervous that there wouldn't be a large enough...

I made it! Here I am in Bangkok after a happily uneventful flight where I even got a few hours of sleep. Stepping off of the plane into the jetway  I could feel the incredible heat seeping through the walls and as I walked down the long sets of corridors of Bangkok...

The next time I see you all, I'll be in Bangkok. I have two events scheduled there: an informal talk with a writing group, and a more formal charity presentation/reading/book signing at the private Neilsen Hays Library.  But more on both of those later. For now, I...

Be forewarned. For the next month I am all about SE Asia and my tour with A Clash of Innocents. I leave in 5 days! But before I go I thought I'd write about how this all came together.  Lots of people have been asking who arranged it all, how did you do it, did it...

I'm going global! Just in time for my SE Asia book tour -- 8 days and counting -- I can now announce that A Clash of Innocents is indeed available as an ebook.  Kindle, iPad, computer, whatever.  If you have fingers to type, you can order it with great ease here.  If...

And what a lovely evening it was here at Lumen, near Russell Square in London:As you can see, it is a very modern church, and that kiln-like structure in the middle is actually a lovely, dark meditation room! The church is also used for a homeless shelter, and it is...

Let's hear it for Twickenham! I had a fantastic evening there this week.  I went to give my presentation about A Clash of Innocents to whoever would show up.  I had no expectations at all.  I was thrilled that they even let me come along and strut my stuff in the...

It amazes me that this is now the third time in the life of this blog that I can show you a photo like this:Don't they look beautiful, despite my usual inexpert display?  With so much of my attention still turned towards my Asian tour for A Clash of Innocents (I leave...

I'm currently somewhere in the sky between the US and the UK, so this one needs to be brief. I did, though, want to urge everyone to go see a preview of my new poetry collection, "Her Life Collected," at Michelle McGrane's blog Peony Moon here. N.B. You may need to...

I'm on the road this week, braving the great American ice storm to visit my parents in New York and then my son up in Boston. I tell you, it makes me long for the relative moderation of a London winter.While I have been travelling I've been using my new iPad all the...

* You don't need a Kindle to read an ebook. You can download one onto your computer and read it there. * Ebooks are more difficult for publishers to format correctly than you might think.* Already, more ebooks are being sold on the Kindle than paperbacks are being...

Happy birthday, dear blog! Yes, amazingly, this blog is now three years old.  And it is amazing, I must admit.  It's hard for me to tell whether it's "grown up" that much over the years or whether it's changed at all.  So I did go back and take a peek at what posts...

I'm changing hats today. The one I'm wearing now isn't the soft flouncy beret-type of the poet.  It's also not the isolation-chamber-like helmet of the novelist.  No, today I'm wearing the fedora of the theatre producer because my theatre charity, CurvingRoad, is now...

My last post stirred up a terrific discussion about prose vs poetry.  You can read it here.  One of the many ideas it made me think about is the idea of old vs new.  Poetry has always been with us, in all languages and all cultures, from the moment we could reflect...

This is a question which I've often asked, but it wasn't until I was editing Her Life Collected that I started to get some answers.  Note that these answers didn't come when I was writing the poems, mind you, but when I was editing. I found that fascinating.  Over the...

Ta da!  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:I'm so pleased with the cover of my new poetry collection and I thought some might be interested in what it takes to come up with such a thing of beauty.* First we had a theoretical discussion about the theme.  What is the book...

Two books over six months: one a novel, the other a poetry collection.  It's been interesting to see the difference in the process of editing one vs the other.  I would have thought the experience of the two edits would have been basically the same, but as I 've spent...

Sorry, but I gave the wrong address for the London launch of Ann Alexander and Mike Horwood tomorrow. Forgive me. But for those interested in coming along, here are the correct details:Trinity United Reform Church1 Buck Street (just 5 mins from Camden tube)Camden...

And here we go into the new year. I'm excited but also a bit overwhelmed by it all.  The next three months are likely to be three of the craziest months I've had in a long time....and that's saying a lot. January will see me getting back to work on promoting A Clash...

I like to think that, no matter how old I may get, each year lived has taught me a new lesson.  More and more, though, it seems like the lessons learned are really lessons relearned -- lessons learned once, then forgotten, then learned again.  And no doubt, the...

And so it is Christmas, nearly. I'm off in a couple of days on my hols; looking forward to having all my boys under one roof for a change, and to the annual Guiney family extravaganza.  As I look out my window at all the snow here in London, though, it looks more like...

Did that get your attention?A while ago, I began a three way conversation with two other writers I admire greatly, Tania Hershman and Lauri Kubuitsile.  Actually, it was Tania's idea.  She began to ask us all sorts of questions about our writing lives, wondering aloud...

It was a strange couple of days.  I came back from my beloved Anam Cara Writing Retreat where for over a week I was blissfully unaware of anything except my work, the work of my friends, and the incredible cold.  Here are a few photos I took of the surrounding...

A while back I promised to write a blog about this one particular methodology for writing a novel called "The Snowflake Method." After my last post about different writing processes, I thought this would be a good time for such a post.  You can read the details of the...