Made a glorious trip in May 2016 to NW Scotland, in aid of research for the end of my new novel, Outwalkers. Mostly my work involves me sitting for long hours on my own at a desk, surrounded by books, paper, notes, staring at a screen and battling my sentences. So having a legitimate work reason …
How do I write? Good question. One answer, as any author will tell you, is to read, read read: How do I write? Good question. One answer, as any author will tell you, is to read, read read: a piece of my bookshelf: Here’s the answer I gave in May 2016, in an interview to …
I’m delighted to say that A Stone’s Throw has been selected by New Writing North to be part of their Read Regional campaign, 2012-2013. What this means is that I’ll be travelling all over Yorkshire and the North-East, to libraries and reading groups, to talk about the novel. I’ve already had a lovely day, meeting …
I was very, very proud of my daughters, Eliza and Jesse, for their intelligent, powerfully articulated and thoughtful pieces in The Independent in April. Quite something, to be asked to write about your mother coming out. Quite something else, to do it as well as they have. What’s harder than telling your parents you’re gay? Your …
I am chuffed to say that from January 2013 I will be working as a Creative Writing lecturer at Northumbria University. I am looking forward to it very much. For the first time ever, I’ll have proper, in-house colleagues! People involved in all kinds of research, projects, writing, etc. And students writing who knows what. …
The screenplay for Tell it to the Bees has just now been delivered to the BFI, after much deliberation about the ending, in particular. I feel very fortunate that both the director, Annabel Jankel, the people at Red Production Co, and Irena Brignull, the scriptwriter, have such a strong take on the book, and that …
After an epic bus journey (six hours is nearly epic on our little island), the Bristol Pride event was hugely enjoyable, not least because of the enthusiasm and warmth of everyone I met. Real pride in their people, their Pride week, their friends, their city. Good pride. I ate a delicious supper in Cafe Kino upstairs, then …
I had a hugely enjoyable visit to Edinburgh in August 2010 to do an event with Emma Donoghue titled ‘Love and Trauma through a Child’s Eyes’. I was talking about Tell it to the Bees and Emma about her powerful and disturbing novel, Room. The children in our novels come in for very different kinds …
Took a lovely walk on Sunday with some New York friends. They’ve rented a tiny ex-fisherman’s cottage in Staithes for the week. We were going to walk over the cliffs to Runswick Bay, but when we got as far as Port Mulgrave we were lured down a steep path to the beach and we spent …
I spent a very enjoyable day in Derbyshire, at Shirebrook and Holymoorside, talking about and reading from Tell it to the Bees. My audiences were both of the best kind: appreciative (I always like that) and challenging. There were both readers and writers in the audiences and so some of the questions people asked were about …