One of the best gifts you can give an author is a (good) review. It doesn’t have to be long, literary and fancy. A simple, ‘I loved this book/I’d recommend it’, or even just a star rating, is enough/ Or course, you should feel free to wax lyrical, too – just leave out the spoilers, please!

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked as an author, is ‘Why did you write about this?’ and it’s closely followed by, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ The latter is  a weird one to answer because, unlike writer friends and clients who are always itching to start new things, I rarely have new, shiny and sparkling ideas.

Longer nights and shorter days, greyer skies, and leaves off the trees: there's no better time to browse bookshops for a few good reads. This October I'm lucky enough to be spoiled for choice amongst the authors I'm lucky enough to call my friends: Warren Chapman, Sharon Black and Linda McEvoy.

I was very lucky to be invited to the closing event of the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2024, sponsored by the Open University in Scotland, to see: Jackie Kay: People's Poet.

There's a well-known phrase in the craft of writing - whether an author is a plotter or a pantser. Essentially, it's measuring the extent to which planning has gone into the writing. This month I'm extending the concept to writing retreats. Neither of myNot  short retreats were planned more than a few days in advance, and so totally without expectation - all the better when they turned out so brilliantly.