Sainsbury's magazine

Step into Sainsbury's and in this month's magazine (November issue) you'll find me, along with two other writers - including fellow Headline author Colette McBeth - talking about the writing courses that helped us on our way. For my part I'm indebted to the Arvon Foundation. Photographer Alun Callender side-stepped the piles of junk in my writing room to take this picture of me and my work space - peer close enough and you'll be able to scrutinise my pen pots and check out my book stacks...

To read a more detailed account of why I love Arvon you can visit the Foundation's website HERE.

Redbridge library awards

Back in the summer I wrote about how The Book of Summers was voted Fiction Winner in The Big Red Read Award 2013. Readers in the London borough of Redbridge's thirteen libraries chose it as their favourite of the shortlisted books, and I was pleased as punch. Last week I visited Fullwell Cross Library to pick up my award, having had to sadly missed the ceremony in May. It was a great chance to meet some readers, see inside one of Redbridge's really quite smashing libraries (Fullwell Cross is an especially snazzy example), and say thank you...

Time for a little then and now shot, I think...

Here's what I looked like the last time I came home with the silverware...

... and last week at Fullwell Cross, clutching my posh Fiction Winner glassware...

A big thank you to all who voted for The Book of Summers, and everyone at Fullwell Cross for making me feel so welcome.

A portrait of the artist as a young (& old) man

This week I posted the last page of my Swiss Sketchbook, a snow-dusted view over the Lausanne rooftops. Today, I thought it was time I added an appendix. Those who've followed the progress of the sketchbook from the beginning will know that the artist, Alwyn Hall, is my dad. You can read my first post, which includes his biography, HERE. This is what he looked like when he was seventeen...

He painted this self-portrait in the summer of 1961, in his makeshift studio, a spare bedroom in his parents' house in Northamptonshire. He told me he used a mixture of oil paints and cheap domestic decorating paint, mixing in sand to give it a textured finish, after the style of the Cubists. It was later included in an exhibition called 'Three Young Artists', in Northampton in 1964. These days it hangs on the wall in my mum and dad's house, literally part of the wallpaper as I was growing up, and it was only when he sent me a photograph, with the title 'portrait of the artist as an old man' that I was reminded of its existence. When we were younger, my sister and I were always amused by its audacity - the brooding looks, the come hither pose - it was hard to connect the young man of the painting with our ole dad. And while I still enjoy its ripe sense of confidence, nowadays I've a greater appreciation for the fact that it exists at all - that a boy's vocation became his life. Here's what that boy looks like today, at work in his studio in Devon...

Thank you, Dad, for bringing my Swiss Sketchbook to life in such marvellous fashion. Readers, I hope you've enjoyed this pictorial tour of some of the settings in A Heart Bent Out of Shape as much as I have.

The Swiss Sketchbook - page 10

'Outside, the spring day was just beginning, spry blue, with great peals of sunshine, yet all of Lausanne was dusted with snow.'

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 374

***

To see page 1 of my Swiss Sketchbook, and to read about the background to the project and its artist, go HERE. And for a closer look at the picture itself just click on the image...

My writing tips

A couple of years ago The Guardian ran a great series on Rules for Writing Fiction, inspired by Elmore Leonard's excellent book on the same subject. The book-loving website Novelicious does a similar thing week on week - go HERE to read my contribution... 

Lausanne, Ernest Hemingway, and Swiss chocolate...

Here's a short film that Headline, my UK publisher, made. In it I describe where the inspiration for my new novel came from, and why the Swiss city of Lausanne will always be one of my favourite places. 

The Swiss Sketchbook - page 9

‘They visited for a week in the full blushes of a Swiss spring, as the flowers along the lakeside popped pink and the steamships to Montreux passed on the hour.’

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 372

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To see page 1 of my Swiss Sketchbook , and to read about the background to the project and its artist, go HERE. And for a closer look at the picture itself just click on the image...

The Swiss Sketchbook - page 8

The streets were full of Saturday shoppers, and there was a pervading air of elegance about them; all sharp cheek bones, smartly tipped hats, and silk scarves tied with a flourish.

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 72 

***

To see page 1 of my Swiss Sketchbook, and to read about the background to the project and its artist, go HERE. And for a closer look at the picture itself just click on the image...

The Swiss Sketchbook - page 7

‘On waking they peeped at the outside world and saw nothing but whitewash: swathes of mist and falling snow.’

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 300

***

To see page 1 of my Swiss Sketchbook, and to read about the background to the project and its artist, go HERE.

The Swiss Sketchbook - page 6

‘Outside, the sun threw blue shadows on the snow. Winter-coated pines stood in gossiping clusters. Everything had an unreal quality.’

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 280

*** 

To see page 1 of my Swiss Sketchbook, and to read about the background to the project and its artist, go HERE. And for a closer look at the picture itself just click on the image...

An interview with Novelicious

Here's an interview I did recently with Novelicious - go HERE to read about being methodical, the wisdom of Stephen King, and why writing what you love is the only thing that really matters... Oh, and the importance of starting the day with coffee, good strong coffee, served in a joy-giving vessel, like this one...

The Swiss Sketchbook - page 5

‘They looked up at the yellow squares of windows set beneath steeply tiled roofs, saw the shapes of people moving behind them, and once a child’s face peeping up at the night sky as though counting stars.’

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 169

***

To see page 1 of my Swiss Sketchbook, and to read about the background to the project and its artist, go HERE. And for a closer look at the picture itself just click on the image...

A peep inside my writing room

Recently I invited the bookish website Novelicious inside my writing room, and explained why I favour a very hard chair and a lamp's happy glow... To read the piece go HERE.

Shortly after we moved in... far too spartan a room for my tastes...

Ah, that's better! Colour and paraphernalia everywhere...

The Swiss Sketchbook - page 4

‘With its arched windows, rows of wooden tables and scrubbed tiled floor it felt like a Parisian café; a place more day than night.’ 

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 109

***

To see page 1 of my Swiss Sketchbook, and to read about the background to the project and its artist, go HERE. And for a closer look at the picture itself, just click on the image...

Podcasts, time machines, and mushroom biryani

The other day I talked to fellow writer & Bristol pal Nikesh Shukla for his excellent podcast, The Subaltern. He's interviewed some amazing authors down the years so it was a treat to be asked. We talked about the duff tag 'aspiring' when attached to 'writer', problematic searches for book titles, and, um, our mutual adoration of donkeys... You can listen to our podcast HERE.

Nikesh's novella, The Time Machine, was published just recently. It's a moving story about one man's mission to recreate the food his mother used to make. The Time Machine is available as an e-book and costs just £1, with all proceeds going to the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation. With its beautifully-described connections between the food we eat and the people we love, as well as enticing recipes, it'll soon have you craving Indian food... Buy it HERE - you'll be doing something good for charity, and yourself.

When I first moved to London, a country bumpkin lost in the city, my boyfriend and I discovered an amazing little neighbourhood restaurant called Hot Stuff. It remains one of my all-time favourite Indian restaurants, and I wrote about the experience of finding it (and finding our way in The Big Smoke) for Nikesh's blog - you can read my piece Bright Lights, Big City, Hot Stuff HERE. 

The Swiss Sketchbook - page 3

‘Turn-of-the-century apartment buildings, majestic and comely and pouting with balconies, sat alongside pastel-painted low-rises.’

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 16

***

To see page 1 of my Swiss Sketchbook, and to read about the background to the project and its artist, go HERE.

The Swiss Sketchbook - page 2

‘She will probably always remember the Hôtel Le Nouveau Monde, its delicate bulk like a glamorous but portly femme d’un certain age.’

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 2

***

To see page 1 of my Swiss Sketchbook, and to read about the background to the project and its artist, go HERE. And for a closer look at the picture itself, just click on the image...

The Swiss Sketchbook - launch & page 1

This Thursday is the UK publication day for A Heart Bent Out of Shape, and I wanted to do something on my blog to mark the occasion. Last year, for The Book of Summers, my dad - the talented artist Alwyn Hall - painted a beautiful picture of Lake Balaton, one of the settings in the book. Throughout the summer I then ran recipes for some of the Hungarian food that appears in the story, from Marika's Raspberry Cake to Cucumber Salad and good old Goulash. So what to do for A Heart Bent Out of Shape? The answer, as it often does for me, lay in 'place'. 

The Swiss Sketchbook is a series of ten pictures that I've commissioned from Alwyn Hall (yep, My Dad again). Each image in the series is based on a line from the novel, and all revolve around location, location, location. Throughout the pages of The Swiss Sketchbook we’ll go from Hadley’s first giddying view of the city, to the Lausanne lakeside, to a snow-dipped mountain dreamscape, to a flower-bright spring. The mediums and styles will always be different too, from pen and ink, to watercolour, to thickly daubed poster paint. I’ll post a new picture every couple of days, through until the end of September, so do check back and see the landscape of the novel unfold.

When I’m writing, I almost always begin with place. Conjuring the spirit of somewhere, capturing its essence, painting a picture with words… these are a few of my favourite things. If reading A Heart Bent Out of Shape succeeds in bringing Lausanne and its environs to life for my readers, and I truly hope it does, then perhaps these sketches will go one step further. For me, they’re the perfect meeting of description on the page, and one reader’s imagination. A reader who just happens to be handy with a paintbrush…

I hope you enjoy this drawing tour of Lausanne and La Suisse. Without further ado, here’s the first page in our Swiss Sketchbook...

‘It is about a city; a place at once fairy-tale and reality-bitten, glorious and imperfect, sun-soaked and winter-whipped.’

From A Heart Bent Out of Shape, page 3

***

About the artist:

Alwyn Hall studied Illustration at Northampton followed by an Art Education degree in Manchester. He taught Art for several years and worked on the North West Region Curriculum Development Project.  This led to a year of educational research in Cardiff.   On returning to Manchester he exhibited paintings at the Northern Academy and other public and private galleries including a successful one-man show at the University. He and his wife then moved to Devon where he took up a Head of Department post in a large Comprehensive School. Much of his work, inspired by the rural area surrounding their home, consists of detailed representational drawings, paintings and linocut prints.  The most exciting project of the last decade, now nearing completion, is a lavishly illustrated collection of his own poems and songs.

Sheep whispering & snowboarding

A few months ago, journalism student Sarah Abrahams got in touch, asking if she could interview me for her final piece of work for her course. I'd met Sarah at a book signing in Exeter last summer, and was more than happy to oblige. I was delighted - for Sarah, and for me! - when she not only got a great grade, but successfully pitched the feature to the magazine Devon Life. Sarah's interview focuses on my Devon childhood, and the importance that that corner of the world continues to play in my writing. My thanks to Sarah, and to Devon Life, for such a lovely feature... may I be known from here on in as The Sheep Whisperer. And best of luck with the rest of your writing career, Sarah!

From the long-ago-past to the more recent past... I've also been chatting to the very cool Cooler Magazine (a snow & surf magazine for women). Back in 2005 I quit my job to go and live in the mountains, and in between the snowboarding, chalet graft, and resort revelry, I worked out what I really wanted to do... write a novel, and work as hard as I could to get it published. You can read the full interview HERE.

The Comeback Kid

I've written a new short story called The Comeback Kid, and last week it appeared in S Magazine (with the Sunday Express). Go HERE to read about the day that Cooper Clay, a faded tennis star, and his lovechild meet one another for the first time...