Thank you all so much for the wonderful birthday wishes.  We had a fantastic weekend in Dubrovnik.  It is a small gem-of-a-city.  You can walk the length of it in 15 minutes, from gate to harbour.  Then you can spend hours wandering up and down ( and I mean UP and...

It's my birthday tomorrow. I don't care what anybody says...I love birthdays, and the older I get the more I want to celebrate them.  So I'm off with Mr D (I decided to stop calling him "hubby" here - he deserves better) for a weekend in Dubrovnik.  Yes,  some might...

I'm aware that my blogs have been a tad on the long-winded side lately, so I thought I'd give us all a break and just post  a few notices today:1.  Writer and editor of Gold Dust Magazine, David Gardiner,  asked me to publicize this year's UK Away Writer's Retreat to...

This week we started rehearsals for ''The Next Curve."  As a writer, this was utterly fascinating.  Yes, I have already had the intriguing experience of workshopping plays, both my own which I discussed here, and someone else's, which I described here.  But rehearsals...

I have been waiting a long time to officially tell you this....My new novel, A Clash of Innocents, is going to be published! The aimed-for publication date is October, 2010 and it will be published by a new indie publishing company called Ward Wood.  Here's how it...

I know I'm a control freak, but I couldn't have organized the timing of this if I tried.....On September 30, 2008, CurvingRoad opened it's biggest production to date, the play Sh*t--M*x by Leo Richardson.  Perhaps you remember? It ran to great reviews and cheering...

It might seem as if all has gone quiet on the theatre front, but don't you be deceived.  The last post about CurvingRoad's new production was all about the workshop here.  Since then we've held production meetings where the  "creative team," which includes the...

One of the great pleasures of this writing life of mine is that I get to know other writers and follow their work.  Elizabeth Baines is one of these.  I first became aware of her work via her excellent short story collection, Balancing on the Edge of the World,...

I thought I'd write about an issue that a new writer may not think about: permission.  Let's say you find the perfect line for your character to quote to her beloved, or there's a song lyric you have always loved that would be the perfect epigram to your new novel. ...

One of the first writers I got to know through blogging is Jon Mayhew.  He was writing his first novel when I started blogging and he seemed like a nice guy.  Plus I felt like we bonded a bit over a mutual interest in running, although his interest far out-stripped...

Again, it's the time thing.  Months ago I had an idea about getting as many authors of the once-and-now-mysteriously-gone bluechrome publishing together for a final hurrah.  And now, it's over.  Thursday was wonderful.  There was a warm and supportive crowd. Plenty of...

Earlier this week I outed myself about my addiction to romantic comedies over on Novel Spaces.  Now I have another secret to divulge -- a biggie.  I have now been given the official go-ahead to tell people unofficially that my next novel, "A Clash of Innocents," will...

I  told you I'd remind you! Go read all about my now not-so-secret obsession over at Novel Spaces.  I mean, you don't have to, but it would be nice if you did.  And then you can make fun of me all you want...And while I have your attention, here's my list of beautiful...

This has been a wonderful week;  the kind of week I dreamed about when I dared to imagine living my life in the arts.  Mainly, my days were taken up with auditions for CurvingRoad's June production, but more on that some other time.  I said I wasn't talking about me...

There were several things I thought I might blog about today, but for various reasons, I can't just yet. But it won't be long now, I thought, as I stared at myself in the mirror making funny teeth-brushing faces. Long Now...well, as I discovered a short while back,...

I've heard about the Wellcome Collection forever.  It's a place I've been meaning to go to for yonks and finally, yesterday, I got myself up and out and went.  According to their pamphlet,        The Wellcome Collection is a free destination for the incurably curious,...

"Closure." My favourite psychobabble word because it's something that does seem to work.  Once you reach closure you can finally put those difficult times behind you.  Sometimes external forces bring the closure to you.  Other times, you have to stand up, say "enough...

I hadn't planned on blogging today, but I guess I just can't stay away from all of you.  I had given myself a break from all things internet over the UK's long Easter holiday -- if you like 3-day weekends, you'll love 4 -- while Hubby and I recovered from our flus...

I've had the flu all week so I haven't been thinking about much except which old war film I should next watch on TV.  I find them especially good to nap to.But during my occasional glimmers of cognitive thought, I've been continuing to think about writing plays.  I...

I had a fascinating couple of days this week.  The director of CurvingRoad's next production, two actors and I locked ourselves in the Old Red Lion Theatre and workshopped Dig, one of the two plays we will be presenting in June.  As far as I'm concerned, workshopping...

As  promised, here are the rest of Marcus' fascinating answers to my innocent questions:Is it frustrating writing about something like physics when you know it can all change at any time? I am especially interested in how you deal with the unreliability of facts. For...

I have always been fascinated by science, as those of you who have read Tangled Roots know.  And I love to  think about the interplay between science and language.  And so, when I heard that Marcus Chown, whose book We Need to Talk  About Kelvin I talked about here,...

Now this is a book I have been waiting anxiously for. Sarah Salway is a well known writer of great talent, generosity and humour. Her previous novels, Tell Me Everything and Something Beginning With, have been big sellers, though I came to know her work first via her...

I don't need to tell you that the airwaves are full of discussions about the changing face of publishing, the latest technological advances and how they affect writers, the how-to's and how-not-to's of everything from writing a pantoum to writing a query letter. I'm...

Thanks to JJ at Tea Stains, I am now the proud recipient of a Prolific Blogger Award.  I'm tired just thinking about it 🙂  Actually, so many people post blogs more frequently than I do that I'm rather chuffed about this.  So now I'm supposed to send you here so you...

   Literature festivals can be enticing smorgasbords. You wander around tasting bits of ideas here, slices of art there. But it is especially interesting when you can sit down to a 3-course, theme-based meal. Sunday's events on offer at the Jewish Book Week literary...

One of the most surprising of all the hats I wear is that of the beleagured theatre producer. Think of Mel Brooks...this may cause me lots of excitement and headaches, but it also creates great curiosity on the part of my friends.  Everyone wants to know how these...

I love creative people, and Fiona Robyn is certainly one of them. Not only is she an excellent writer of moving novels and beautiful poetry, she also seems to be a marketing whiz. Fiona has decided to publish her new novel, Thaw, on the internet for free in its...

I usually post something here on Sundays, but I have a special post going out tomorrow so I'm just dropping by now to say hi and ask you to come back then.But in the meantime, if you are a Talking Heads and/or a Kermit the Frog fan, I urge you to look here.

I have spent a rather blissful couple of weeks revising my new poetry collection which I'm calling (at least for now) "Her Life Collected." It's been edited by the poet Katy Evans- Bush (aka Baroque in Hackney) and what an exhaustive job she's done.  She's managed to...