Category: The Writing Life
-
Cornwall…
…is the setting for my second novel. Which, as of today, is also my seventh novel… The Cold Cold Sea was re-released today with a fab new cover by The Cover Collection – I love it! I have lovely memories of Cornwall, especially the north coast around Newquay, so here are a few pics of…
-
Visiting Yorkshire and – new book!
After the fraught journey to get to Leeds, I settled down in my hotel and started the week’s busy programme of book and family events. First up was meeting writer Carmen Radtke, who was on the blog a few months ago with a post about Australia and missing brides. We spent the afternoon on the…
-
Train travel in middle England…
My journey from N.E. Switzerland to sunny Leeds didn’t start well. I arrived at Zürich Airport well on time, only to see DELAYED in large letters beside my flight. Ah, well. I’d allowed two and a half hours between landing at Luton and catching the first of three trains – where I had reserved seats,…
-
Statues (and things) in Switzerland…
On Friday and Saturday I spent a few hours in Zug, Central Switzerland, on the way to and from Louise Mangos’ Strangers on a Bridge launch do. There’s a lot to like in Zug – a beautiful lake, a lovely historic old town – and some artwork. The old town first – above is the…
-
The Cold Cold Sea – a book with many covers…
During the writing process, I’m not sure what I was expecting to see on the cover of my second book. It had various working titles along the way, until The Cold Cold Sea came to mind while I was looking at photos of Cornwall one day. I suppose I thought my book would look something…
-
The Half-Bunny Pub…
It happened years ago, somewhere in England. I was visiting friends; we’d been out for the day and were driving home again when someone suggested stopping for a drink. A hotel sign in the middle of the countryside presented itself, so we drove a hundred metres or so up a narrow lane to the the…
-
Places in – pictures? Or words??
When I was seven or eight, our next-door neighbour – an elderly lady – had an ash tree in her garden, right on the border with ours. Her garden was half-wild, and to my great joy there was no fence between the two properties. Under – and halfway up – that tree became my special…
-
From first idea to published book: Bea Davenport and The Misper
Bea Davenport was the first writer I met in real life. Our debut novels were published in 2013, and we did several bookshop and library events together, and then repeated the process with our second novels in 2014. Since then, although our book journeys have diverged, we’ve remained firm friends, and I’m delighted to have…
-
2017 – the best of times and the worst of times… (a minimalist’s version)
Another year bites the dust, and like most years, 2017 had its ups and downs. Here are a few of mine: Best decision – turning some of my old magazine stories into a charity anthology for a year. All profits made by The Saturday Secret up until mid-February will go to Doctors without Borders. Worst breakage…
-
New land…
It’s been months since I joined Instagram. Yesterday, after months of trial, getting cross, error, and giving up, I finally worked out how to get pics onto my account. You have to use your mobile phone. For someone hopelessly devoted to larger machines – desktop or laptop or even netbook; I’m not fussy – this…
linda huber 