The subject of favourite books/films/best of the year things has come up a number of times recently so I thought I'd list mine here.

Here goes...


Book of the Year for Adults: Something Beginning With, Sarah Salway.

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Rustling through a box of books in my parents’ house, I came across an old friend, a small slim volume with a distinctive modernist black and white cover. I remember how I found it in a sale at university and opening it up in the middle and the text jumping out at me: for it was so familiar and yet I had never read it before. It was Beckett, it was Python, it was modern, it was FUNNY. And yet it was written before all these things and I’d never heard of it before.

The book was Princess Ivona by Polish writer, Witold Gombrowicz, acknowledged as one of the masters of European literature. The publisher was “Calder and Boyars.”

When I spoke to Catheryn Kilgarriff, Marion Boyars’ daughter, I asked her more about the incredible history of her publishing house and she talked candidly about her flamboyant mother, the struggle she faced from the mountain of debt left after her mother’s death and why she spent most of this year’s Frankfurt Book Festival hiding in the toilets!

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The list is in two parts. Part one is here.

Keep scrolling.

No, I mean, really keep scrolling.

A bit more.

Just a leetle bit more.

Whoa. Yep. There it is. The Gentle Axe. Picked out by a gentleman of evident good taste, by the name of Tom Nolan. Thank you, Mr Nolan.

Still time to get it delivered in time for Christmas, though according to Amazon UK there's only one left in stock.

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Ye gods, but I have worked like a dog today. A dog with a particularly difficult owner and no chance of a bone. My noble attempts to get the minutes done this morning were thwarted by the Professor worrying about bids and deadlines, and by the Registry wanting me to collate online documents into neat packages so they could worry about them in smaller chunks. Which I did whilst staring blearily at the computer screen and wishing my reading glasses were here already. Honestly, I think I'm going to invest in some matchsticks to keep my eyes open. And functioning ...

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A couple of revelations this week. Firstly, someone I met yesterday asked me what I did and for the first time I said, with no hesitation, "I'm a writer". Not "Well, I used to be a journalist, but now, well, um, I write fiction, I'm trying to... um". Just straight: "I am a writer". Felt very good.

Second, I have been beating myself up for the past six months about not being able to write "full-length" short stories, i.e. anything over 1000 words (4 pages or so). Ever since my book deal in June, I have felt blocked on this front and I was despairing. However, I have been writing flash stories, under 500 words, loads of them. I've written at least 30 in the last 6 months........

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Love the cold mornings and boy hasn't it been cold these past days. Managed to do some Xmas shopping again today so nearly ready. Have been trying to write a flash for Porspero's 60th birthday and the challenge. Almost finished but will not be as wicked as Y'vonne's which is great.

Some people might say I am one to hold a grudge. Hold it, stroke it and give it little treats, even. But at least I am fair in my grudge-holding - at least two thirds of my grudges are against myself.


One of the grudges that has reared its resentful head recently is over some miniature cheese muffins.

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The delightful Rhian at the It’s a Crime review site has today been kind enough to include my suggestion for a humdinger crime book for Christmas which should definitely be on your list if you haven’t read it already – Louise Welsh’s The Bullet Trick – so do have a read of my review and buy it. You know you want to! I also love Rhian’s description of me as the “UK killer queen of the gay novel”. How I would soooo love to use that as the strapline to my upcoming new-look website, but fear that I might have to wear an appropriate outfit for the full effect. Whatever that outfit may be! Anyway, thank you, Rhian – your description has certainly made Lord H chuckle, and his eyebrows are still in orbit …

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A few years ago I kept meeting people - in real life and online - who maintained firmly that it's pure luck, whether or not you get a publishing deal. Apart from the fact that to say that to someone who's just got a publishing deal is rather rude, it's also not true. It's not completely false, either, though even if you do spill coffee down the Editorial Director of MegaBooks, and get chatting, s/he may offer to read your manuscript, but MegaBucks won't buy it if it won't make them a profit. And if it's good enough to get a deal that way it probably would have got one without the dry cleaning bill. Most of those stories of amazing luck are polished up to make - well - good stories. Sometimes it seems as if the reading public and the journalists who feed them would rather attribute a publishing deal to anything except the dull business of one person sitting down and writing a book, maybe for years, it until it's good enough.

So what should they be attributing it to?

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Chapteronepromotions.com: Short Story Writing Competition
Hey Everyone
I have been trying to post an ad on this website, but have been unable to do so yet. I just wanted to tell everyone to go to wwww.chapteronepromotions.com and have a look at the competitions. The deadline for the short story competition is the end of January. The first prize is £2,500. Have a look at the website for more details. There's also loads of workshops etc
Have a look
Quill