Usually when I've written about editors here it's because I've been cross - and that's usually because I've felt that they've taken far too long to get back to me (if at all) re the story I've sent them. I've said that I don't think it's fair, for instance, to expect us writers to adhere to their guidelines (set it out this way, send it like this etc - perfectly reasonable) to then find that they don't pay much attention to them themselves (you should hear back from us with xyz days, or send us an SAE and we'll make sure you know if you're not short listed). Or worse, there are those places who say it could take (insert stupid amount of time) to hear from us, if you don't your story's not been accepted. I still think I'm right, and I still think that those examples are unfair and are far too common.

But in three years of blogging, my praise for editors has been, shall we say, minimal. And that, equally, isn't fair.

Read Full Post

This book is touted on the cover blurb as being the follow-up to Brick Lane, despite the fact that Ms Ali had another (not terribly well-received) book published in the interim. In The Kitchen centres on Gabriel Lightfoot, Gabe for short, who is executive chef in the kitchen of the swanky Imperial Hotel in London. Gabriel’s life begins to unravel when kitchen porter Yuri is found dead in the basement, and also when he discovers that up north his Dad is dying of cancer.

I thought Ali dealt well with the multi-cultural aspects (as one might expect from someone who has written something as brilliant as Brick Lane), the character of Lena who Gabriel gets friendly is excellently written, and her Russian dialect perfectly captured. However, sometimes it felt as if Gabe was asking the various members of his cooking team their stories as a way of dumping information upon the reader. Ms Ali has clearly done a lot of research (she lists a whole heap of books she has relied on for research), but some of it was unnecessary – I think she mentions the fact that proteins are ‘denatured’ in the cooking process three times! I saw her speak about the book at the Hay Literary Festival, and she actually spent some time in a hotel kitchen observing.

Read Full Post

It was Josa Young, author of “One Apple Tasted” and recent guest blogger here on SW, who chose Barbara Comyns’ “Our Spoons Came From Woolworth’s” as her favourite book. I was immediately taken by the title and looked it up on Amazon. A Virago Modern Classic. Published in 1950. A novel set in the Bohemian London of the 30’s about marriage, poverty, and adultery, praised by none other than Graham Greene as having “an off-beat humour” and ending happily. Oh, yes. I already knew this was my kind of book and I was right.

Read Full Post

A friend is suffering from something which I think we all are at risk of: a passionate desire to write something, and a poisonous sense that everything they might write - every kind of character, situation, theme or plot - has been done before. And better. And worse. And in corsets and in spaceships and in Brixton. So why bother? What's the point? How can any of us, ever, say anything new? Anything worth writing, let alone worth reading? Let alone get it published? And I found myself replying like this:

There's a bird's-eye map you have in your head, a big but un-detailed map of the whole bookish terrain. You can see an awful lot of books, but only their most obvious features. And in those obvious features, they have a lot - too much - in common. Yes, there are only seven basic plots, and if you reduce a book to it barest bones - the blurb, the elevator pitch, the synopsis - it'll look like one of those seven (which is why we hate constructing those so much).

One reasons stories like fairy tales and myths seem so archetypal - are the archetypes of all our stories - is that they don't have particular, individual detail. Stepmothers are bad, princes are good, trees are trees (only oaks in Victorian dressings-up of them), cats are magical. There are very few individual motivations or peculiarities - it's all generic, in the true sense of the word - because we're dealing with the basics of human interaction (see Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment for Freud, Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots for Jung). Which is why we have such fun with re-tellings and modern fairy tales and things: they play with the bare bones of our archetypal stories like a skeleton dancing at the Day of the Dead, and dress them up in silly clothes so that we re-see them. Of course fiction isn't like that: we have a couple of millenia of drama and now novels dedicated to bringing alive the individual human consciousness, from Oedipus to Hamlet to Hedda Gabler.

So, "It's not the subject, it's all in how you do it!" we cry, and it's true that what makes a book itself, rather than something else, is how those basic bones are fleshed and clothed and made to dance.

Read Full Post

I have a very short (and rather strange) story over at the brilliant Metazen today. It's called Two Old Women Birdwatching in My Garden. I hope you like it. It's one I'm rather fond of.

Read Full Post

As I formulate witty and insightful thoughts in my head about the cultural differences between my new city and Jerusalem, I am bringing you the second in the Writing & Place series of guest blog posts, this one from Miriam Drori, who blogs at An' De Walls Came Tumblin Down. A bit about our guest today: Miriam Drori came to writing late in life, prompted by a passionate desire to be understood and to help others. By profession, she is a writer of a different sort: a technical writer. Miriam lives in Jerusalem with her husband, three children, a cat who walked in one day and a novel that’s straining to get out into the world.

Take it away, Miriam! ........

Read Full Post

Penny is an agent at the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency Ltd.


The author I wish we’d ‘discovered’ most is…..
Oh, have a guess!

Left on a cliffhanger or told all?
Sadly, it’s an agent’s lot to have the ending ruined so if this question relates to the synopsis, please tell all! When I’m reading for pleasure (a vain aspiration) I prefer to have things resolved. The last two books I’ve read seemed to race to a close and left me wanting somewhat.

The perfect book deal is…
Decided upon quickly, for the right kind of money, with the right kind of contract, but most perfectly when the author and editor are perfectly married and everyone from sales, marketing and publicity to the post room are excited about the book and the author.

You really must read…
Something is Going to Fall Like Rain by Ros Wynne Jones. This is partly a gratuitous plug for a friend’s book but also a great example of how first novels, with work, can become expertly polished.

I get most excited by…
Ahem, at work? It’s weird, I’ve been working in the publishing for 14 years now and I still get the biggest buzz when someone places a finished copy in my hand.

My biggest tip for a writer is…
One thing that irritates me the most with unsolicited submissions are the people who’ve read just enough to know that their idea might have a commercial application but not nearly enough to know how utterly derivative their submission is. I know authors are always told to read but I might venture that revision is more valuable.



Read Full Post

The most horrendous thing happened to me last night! Knowing we had guests to dinner, I stopped off on the way home from the Day Job to get a few extra things, decided to pay with my Maestro card and was knocked for six when the card was refused twice. Fortunately I had enough cash on me to cover it but I was so embarrassed. I couldn't understand it. I only got paid two days before. Then I remembered - the mortgage and a number of direct debits had all gone out together and this was one of the few months of the year that the input date of my salary differentiated to Hubby's.


Read Full Post

Megan Taylor thinks my blog is fabulous. Thank you Megan, yours is rather fine as well.

Now, as part of accepting this lovely award I have to do meme shenanigans. Namely: List five obsessions. Megan offered 5 obsessions in her writing which I may do as well. We'll have to see how I feel further into this post (it's feeling like a long day already!).

Nik's Obsessions (or what he's obsessive about - are they the same thing?):

Fountain pens. (Like you didn't know that.)
Stats for this blog. (Yes, I'm watching you.)
Getting writing right. (A hopeless one.)
Not being too sensitive. (As above.)
Birds. And leopards. I really like leopards.


And writing obsessions? Why not.

Read Full Post

I’ve gone Wireless.

Viki (local white witch, astrologer and computer expert) spent several hours sorting this out for me. Part of the process involved me having to change into red clothes because of Mars. But let’s not go there.

You must understand that I am a Luddite of the first order. Technological change is anathema to me. I’m the one who tried to back up my work onto a mouse modem. Let’s not go there either.

I went Wireless because I wanted to be able to use my laptop in my attic study alongside my trusty old PC (1996 – the Luddite in me hates to let it go). And I wanted to do this because then I wouldn’t be continually drawn to checking my email at the kitchen table. Like many Luddites, I suspect, I am hideously addicted to any small technological thing I can do.

So now I have a sweet little white doo-dah with feet and a tiny tail (I keep wanting to feed it snacks because it crouches beside me in a permanent begging position) which sends magic rays to my laptop and allows it to work anywhere.


Read Full Post