The ‘Somehow’ Problem
I have a list of what I call ‘Traitor Words’. Toward the end of my rewriting/revising/reworking process, I always sit down and do a Search for each of them. If I find one, I destroy it and replace it with a better word – because Traitor Words weaken writing....
Writers Write: My Favourite Book 16
Ben Chandler I grew up in a smallish town in the northeast of the USA that exists, more or less, in a forest. It’s the sort of place riddled with big red barns and three-hundred-year-old farmhouses. It had, and I’ve no reason to believe this has changed, an ancient,...
Writers Write: My Favourite Book 15
Fiona Wood My book is Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, published in 1902. It’s a novel of ‘careful what you wish for’ episodes featuring a family of children – Anthea, Jane, Robert and Cyril and their baby brother, the Lamb (Hilary) – who find a Psammead, an...
Writers Write: My Favourite Book 14
Michael Gerard Bauer The book I remember most fondly from my childhood would have to be Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. I’m not sure how old I was when I first read it, but I must have been quite young because I remember it as being my...
Steampunk Playing Cards
Just arrived on my doorstep – Steampunk Playing Cards from Theory 11. Magnificent! ...
Writers Write: My Favourite Book 13
Foz Meadows Foz made a splash debut in 2010 with ‘Solace and Grief’, and followed it in 2011 with ‘The Key to Starveldt’, both powerful and moving horror/paranormal tales. From the moment my grandmother gave me the first book as a ninth birthday present, I was hooked on the...
Writers Write: My Favourite Book 12
Kate Constable Kate is the author of the much loved ‘The Chanters of Tremaris’ series. There is a very particular thrill in discovering a book that seems to have been written just for you and nobody else in the world. When I first read Peter’s Room in my early...
Made Up Statistics
16% of people think a placebo was a government official in ancient Sumer. 4% of ants are actually small sticks. 8% of people have no nail on their little toes. 14% of Renaissance painters were allergic to cheese. 28% of people have faces that cannot be caricatured by cartoonists....
Writers Write: My Favourite Book 11
Justin D’Ath Justin is the author of over 30 books for children and young adults, including the hugely popular Extreme Adventures series. I grew up in a house of books – well, three houses really, since the family moved twice as it grew larger; and the books went with...
A New Book: 10 Futures
I can finally divulge details of the top secret project I’ve been working on for some time. 10 Futures is a series of linked stories which explore humanity’s next hundred years. Ten story segments, ten possible futures, each with its own challenges and opportunities – overpopulation, worldwide financial collapse,...