Meeting a local reading group. Friendship, Community and The Classics

I was asked by a local reading group to discuss my novel The Witch’s Tree (Elena Collins) at one of their meetings. I accepted immediately. Not only is it always a wonderful opportunity to talk about books, but the fact that everyone had taken the trouble to read The Witch’s Tree and wanted to chat …

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The treasure inside the nutshell: talent that goes unnoticed.

It’s interesting to think about talented people and to stop for a moment and really take in just how good they are, in terms of their skills being so much more than what we know as average. I often use myself as the average against which to compare others, but in many ways, I don’t …

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The immersion technique – it’s one way to write your next novel…

I have a friend who claims to have completely cured her arthritis by swimming in the sea, whatever the weather. Her pains completely disappeared, and she swore that it was because she immersed herself regularly in freezing water. I recently saw British athlete Mo Farah and Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo do something similar on TV, …

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The excitement of writing for a competition…

I enjoy writing for specific events or audiences, as there is a kind of precision and framework to be considered. It's quite an interesting mental exercise when you have a word limit, or when you have to create something for a specific genre. I like writing newspaper or magazine articles, poems, speeches, plays, all of …

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Lockdown, languages and me. (Warning: much failure, a little success…)

As a writer, I’m blessed with being able to work from home and I’m so lucky to have a job I enjoy, that I return to each day with energy and enthusiasm. Lockdown is a difficult time for everyone in their own way, but some people have real problems in managing to get by in …

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Imagine Five French Hens as a Hollywood film with this huge cast…!!

I love the way films and live theatre give us as an audience the opportunity to immerse ourselves in a story through the eyes of the characters we meet. It's fascinating how a few lines on a page, a book or a script, can be turned into something visual and vibrant in front of our …

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