The lovely Nik Perring has included an interview featuring Sally Nicholls and me on his blog dated 6 March (see full post for links). It's a nice author/mad author mix for sure - no prizes for guessing which way round Sally and I are! Many thanks, Nik, for asking the questions.

Am feeling a little better today, thank goodness (and thanks also for the good wishes - much appreciated), though still a bit low. Have taken a De-stress pill (just the one - honest!) so am hoping that will see me through for a while. I could probably do with another nap, but unfortunately I don't have the time. Dammit ...

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I'm going to go on a bit here, so you might want to grab a coffee and get comfy.

About three weeks ago, I was emailed by one of the editors at Comma Press, who'd been reading my review of the CWA Anthology, ID: Crimes of Identity at The Short Review. He liked the review and, after reading my bio, invited me to submit a selection of stories for the next CWA Anthology, MO: Crimes of Practice. This was a terrific opportunity; not only are Comma Press one of the best short story publishers around (hugely respected, lauded by the broadsheets and critics) but inclusion in the CWA Anthology is generally limited to published authors of full length crime novels. The drawback was the schedule, there was no time to write something new, it had to be 'in a drawer', fitting their theme.


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Not a great day health-wise today - feeling rather fragile, so haven't done as much of my read-through of The Gifting as I would have liked. Cue the usual stab of that well-known Writers' Guilt ... Ah well, I have managed to get to p226 so am at the last chapter of Part Two. A concept not to be sniffed at, I suppose.

And my publicity flyers for Thorn in the Flesh have finally (after much to-ings and fro-ings) been delivered and very nice they look too. I'm extremely pleased with them. Now all I have to do is find the energy to send some out to my less email-friendly friends, and any other contact I can think of! I was also delighted to see a small article about me and Thorn in Writers' News magazine, which was delivered today. Almost makes me sound like a real writer, ho ho ...

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How did you feel about Metronome's response, "If people want it, they can go to the ICA." to Waterstones request to stock Remainder?

Metronome Press was an art project, run by two curators, launched firmly from within the art world and its networks. Having one foot in that world myself, I'd noticed that that was the environment in which people actually read proper literature rather than the latest Booker/Richard-and-Judy crap. So I was happy for them to take that stance. Perhaps at the time I wasn't, but in retrospect I thought it was pretty cool; and as it worked out, bigger publishers would bring out their own editions of Remainder later and put them in Waterstones and every other shop. The Metronome edition was just a limited run thing anyway.


The title of your first book "Remainder", is the same term used for books returned by retailers that are not sold. Was this an intentional joke on your behalf and how confident were you that the book would sell?

Read more ...

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How was your Mother's Day? Middle and Youngest Sisters and I - plus the three youngest nephews - gathered at Mother's on Sunday afternoon for a Family Tea. Husbands three were all working and unable to make it (well, that was their story!) - but it was actually really nice - just the four of us (the three boys ran about like bombs on legs all afternoon, howling, giggling and squealing)enjoying each other's company. We sat round Mother's little kitchen table, picking at the giganticus buffet Mother had put on (despite being told not to and that we'd all bring a contribution) which concluded with a spoon a piece diving into the chocolate gateaux - and oh, it was scrummy! It made a pleasant change and Mother enjoyed it which was the main thing - although she did complain a bit about the amount of food left over (her fault entirely, she should have just let us bring our contributions!) - and the gateaux was to die for, so who's complaining?

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Ooh gosh, I actually seem to have sold one or two more copies of Thorn in the Flesh – so huge thanks to the University Health Centre for their enthusiasm! I’ve also managed to get the book news onto the University intranet and the commercial noticeboard, so I feel I’m PR-ed out now. For a while.

This morning, I’ve carried out a VDU assessment for a new employee and discovered that my assessee (is that a word even?) has been given so short an extension lead to her keyboard that she can barely reach the thing when in the correct typing position. And if she does manage to get the keyboard where it should be, then it slowly pings back to the wall. I’m hoping the powers that be will grant us a longer lead soon – it’s certainly the merciful option!...

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In the week that A L Kennedy said in the Observer in response to the question "Why don't we read short stories in Britain?"

That's like saying I don't like pandas because I don't spend much time with them. We do read short stories; it's amazing how much we read them, when we rarely know they've been published, because they aren't reviewed. We can't find them in bookshops and rarely see them in magazines.

The Short Review is trying to do its small part to redress the balance. Issue 5 is now available: Ten new reviews - ....


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Ah it’s like a Monday all over again today – the existential pain of having to go into work, groan … Still it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared (about two calming pills-worth, if you’re asking), mainly because I was running around like the proverbial until late afternoon and hardly had time to breathe, let alone think.

I’ve managed to be incredibly brave and ring some suppliers to get ballpark (hark at my management speak moment – someone take me out and shoot me before I do it again!!) estimates for our online booking system. My, how these people do like to talk. And ouch. It’s slightly more than a trip down the High Street, m’dears, ain’t it … I think we might be parking the ballpark (as it were) and carrying on as we were ...

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I got home yesterday evening, after a day spent doing things other than writing, and switched on the computer. When at last it was ready to chunter off and pick up the day's email, one that came in was from my publisher. Now they don't bombard me with stuff, and I'm not expecting anything this week, so was this big news or small, good news or bad? Either way, it and a whole lot of other online stuff would need dealing with, so I had an excuse for not sitting down at the computer straight away.

I changed out of my funeral-going outfit, got the supper out of the freezer, went to the loo, made a cup of tea, opened the post, tickled the top of my maths-homework-doing daughter's head, went upstairs to the study, drew the curtains, adjusted the lights, sat down and tackled the spam, approved the blog comments, checked the stats... But of course I couldn't help wondering all the time what Headline was emailing about...

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Book blog, The Millions, just held a Short Story Week. At the conclusion of the week they published their 45 favourite short story collections. The list includes quite a few titles that are new to me. Wonderful to see Aimee Bender, Lorrie Moore, George Saunders and Diane Williams on that list, some of my personal favourites. The ones reviewed on The Short Review are:

* The Collected Stories by Katherine Mansfield
* Self-Help, by Lorrie Moore

So we have at least another 43 we should be reviewing, it seems.

The Millions also has a fascinating interview with short short story writer Barry Yourgrau .....

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