I’m ending the year in the very lucky position of being on a shortlist for a writing prize I’d very much like to win. This means I’ve spent the time between Christmas and New Year editing the extract of my novel-in-progress that I intend to submit.

Friends, Writers and their (Brilliant) Books

Writing might be hailed as an isolated career but the writing world is full of fascinating people. In this month’s blog I’m celebrating two very special women and their most recent publications: Caroline Moir, with Brockenspectre, and Neet Neilson, author of Hope and Sanctuary.

October’s writing life has probably been as ‘normal’ as it’s going to get in the foreseeable future. And so much so, it feels hectic; full of ends and beginnings.

Scroll back far enough and you'll find that this blog was originally set up when I was launching my travel memoir, A Blonde Bengali Wife, way back in 2010.  Several years before, my now-retired literary agent, Dinah Weiner, read the MS, went to Bangladesh herself and (very long story very short) by 2007 we'd set up the charity Bhola's Children. It's too long since I did an update, so, direct from Zakir, 'our man in Bhola', here it is:

On a sunny Monday morning at the Edinburgh Book Festival, I may have reached the pinnacle (so far) of my writing career.