Expat Booktag

 

Hi everyone. I decided to do a booktag Q&A about being a British expat in Rwanda. The tag was started by ReaDANculous. You can find his original video here. 

My First Live Stream!

 

I did my first ever live stream last night with the lovely Margaret Pinard and Books, Songs and Other Magic. Thank you both for being so welcoming and gentle with me. Think I settled into it after sorting out the sound issues and topping up my wine. Here's the full discussion:

Agitation August Interview

 

Had a lovely time talking to Margaret Pinard on her YouTube channel last night. As part of Agitation August I was talking about a book that really shook me up. I chose Emergency Sex: True Stories from a War Zone which had a huge impact on me when I first moved to Rwanda. We talk about everything from the state of international development, to youth unemployment, and the meaning of life - just small things. There's a lot more laughs than I make that sound! Turn on the live chat replay for extra entertainment, and if you could lightly bother the like button, it would be much appreciated. 

Agitation August

 

Yikes! I forgot to post about this to my blog. Managed all the other social media outlets but forgot this one. Definite socmedia burnout.

My friend Margaret Pianard is hosting Agitation August all this month over on her YouTube channel. She's interviewing lots of readers and authors about books that really shook them up and changed the way they see the world. Go subscribe and hit notifications to follow along. You can also play book bingo (see the video above) for a chance to win $75 in book tokens. Well worth watching.

I'll there on 22 August at 10 am PDT, 6 pm GMT, 7 pm CAT talking about Emergency Sex: True Stories from a War Zone, which had a profound effect on me when I first arrived in Rwanda. I'll also be hanging out in the chat to answer questions and just say 'hello.'

See you over there!

Worlds Collide Podcast - Talking About Life in Rwanda

I had a chat with Worlds Collide. It's a podcast run by Viktoria Daute, where she interviews expats around the world to find out what it's like living in different countries. I told her about my life in Rwanda. It was really good fun. You can listen to my episode here. 

Gill's Blog Interview

 

As I've mentioned before, I have a short story out later in the year with Bridge House Publishing. 

Ahead of that, I've just done a little interview with their CEO, Gill James.

You can read the interview here and you can find Gill on her website and Twitter.

Juliet Marillier Interview

I was just meandering through social media when someone mentioned the extremely talented author, Juliet Marillier. It was my great privilege to interview her back in 2016 for Pagan Writing Community, which I occasionally help out with.

I thought that I would repost the original interview, with permission, to this blog, for those who haven't already read it. She's an incredibly inspiring writer.

Juliet Marillier is a multi-award winning author of historical and folkloric fantasy. She lives in New Zealand and has travelled extensively in pursuit of a good story. Juliet is also a member of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. You can find her via her website (which includes her blog) and on Facebook.

 

We are so excited to be interviewing Juliet Marillier today.

Thank you to all the PWC members who sent in questions, we've tried to get through them all. We've also got a sneak preview of the cover for Juliet's latest novel, Den of Wolves, out later this year. We've included it at the end of the interview.


Hi Juliet. One of our members cited you as the influence behind her own story, The Enchanted Swans, due out later this year. Christy wanted to ask what first inspired you to novelize fairy tales?

I didn’t make a conscious decision to do so. When I was writing my first novel, mainly as therapy after a particularly challenging period in my life, I was drawn to the fairy tale of The Six Swans – one of my favourites from childhood, and a story with a strong woman at its heart. The theme was particularly relevant for me at that time. I asked myself what would happen if the devastating events of that story – the brothers changed into swans, and their sister set a terrible task to win them back their human form – happened to a real life family. Who would stand strong? Who would fall apart? How would the experience change them? 

I have loved traditional stories all my life, from the time before I could read, when my parents read to me or told me made up stories. Myths and legends, folklore and fairy tales contain deep wisdom. Many of them were first told around the fire at night to make sense of the world’s challenges and to give people heart. The lessons in them are still relevant today – they teach us about love and loyalty, strength and courage, faith and honour. They teach us how to live our lives more wisely. 

Out of my 19 novels, only four are built around particular fairy tales (Daughter of the Forest – The Six Swans; Wildwood Dancing – The Twelve Dancing Princesses/The Frog Prince; Heart’s Blood – Beauty and the Beast, and more recently Dreamer’s Pool, which owes quite a bit to The Goose Girl.) I do include uncanny elements in all the books, though, even the more historically-based stories, and there are many folkloric or fairy tale motifs and ideas in them. 

I’ve also written two shorter stories based on fairy tales: the award-winning By Bone-Light, a modern take on Vasilissa the Fair, and a novella called Beautiful, an unusual version of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which will be published later this year.

You do it so well, do you have any hints on your creative process?

My background as a musician helps. I studied music to honours level at university and worked for quite a long time as a singing teacher and choral conductor as well as being a composer. Alongside my love of traditional storytelling, that background has helped me develop a particular rhythm and flow in my writing. In terms of process, I plan everything out in advance, initial idea and research first, then an outline, a synopsis, probably a chapter plan before I begin actually writing the book. I keep on editing the previous parts of the manuscript while writing the later parts, so it gets a lot of polishing and refining along the way. I don’t do a series of complete drafts, it’s more like one continuous draft over many months. 

That may sound quite rigid, but of course rules can be broken and plans can be changed in the interests of better storytelling. It usually takes me a year from initial idea to finished polished manuscript. Writing is my full time day job, though I also look after five needy dogs, all rescues, and they gobble up both time and emotional energy. But I love them!

You are a member of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. Can you tell us a bit about your path to joining, and what part your spirituality plays in your writing? 

When I was writing my first novel, Daughter of the Forest, set in early medieval Ireland, I needed to include a druid character. I started researching ancient druidry, rather a challenge since it was strictly an oral tradition and extremely secret, so there are no reliable historical records. It happened that Philip Carr-Gomm, chief of OBOD, was visiting Australia at that time. I attended a talk he gave in which I found out about modern druidry and the wealth of lore and knowledge available on both contemporary and ancient druidic practices. I was delighted to find a spiritual path that chimed with so many of my existing beliefs. I completed two grades of the OBOD correspondence course and I am still learning – it’s a lifelong path. 

My spiritual beliefs influence my writing strongly. I don’t mean writing about druid characters and druid ritual, though I have done that a few times. It’s a more general thing. The underlying values of my spiritual path are likely to permeate everything I write. Three beliefs are particularly important to me: that storytelling has a great power to teach and to heal; that god, goddess or spirit is not set above us, but resides within all living things and links them together; and that we need to live the life we have as wisely and well as we can, rather than dwell on what might come afterwards. I never hammer home moral lessons in my stories, and I’m happy if people read them solely for entertainment. But there are some deep-down values and some wisdom there for readers who choose to look for them. 

There are six series to your name. Do you always know how many books will be in a series? Do you plan it out beforehand, or do you only know how many books there will be once they're written? 

These days I submit a proposal to a publisher, not a finished book or series. That is, I sign a contract before I write the series. So I do have to know in advance how many books there will be, and have at least a rough plan for each one. The exception was the Sevenwaters series, originally intended to be a trilogy. I was asked by a publisher to write three follow-up novels, so it became a six book series. 

Do you find it hard to close a series and let go of the characters?

Yes, it can be very hard to say goodbye to characters I love. For me, the characters live on after the end of the series.

Do you have a favourite childhood fairy tale or folk character?

Lots! These days I would choose Baba Yaga, the fearsome old woman who lives in the forest in a hut on hen’s legs, and who possesses the gift of fire. As a child I might have chosen a strong young woman from a fairy tale, either the girl in The Six Swans or the brave young wife in East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Admirable role models! 

Which authors do you admire? Who helped to shape and inspire you?

Without a doubt, what shaped and inspired me as a writer was traditional stories: fairy tales, folklore, myths and legends. I admire many authors across a wide range of genres and styles. I love accomplished writing that pushes the boundaries but I also love great storytelling, so my favourite writers tend to be those who combine the two. For historical fiction I really admire the late Dorothy Dunnett. I re-read Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels every year, and also Daphne du Maurier’s Cornish novels. All those writers are great stylists. As a young reader I adored Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. That novel helped give me my romantic streak.

You have travelled a lot in pursuit of research for your books. Is there anywhere you haven't been that you still want to explore? Is there anywhere you would like to return to? And please could you tell us a bit about Transylvania and Wildwood Dancing?

Yes, I’ve been very fortunate in being able to travel quite widely for research purposes, thanks to the kind readers who buy my books and allow me to earn my living as a writer. There are plenty of places I haven’t visited and would love to see, for instance Brittany, Cornwall, Russia, South America. It’s becoming harder to get away now that I have so many dogs! I would love to return to Orkney, where my Viking novel Wolfskin is set, and indeed I am intending to do so in mid-2017 for a writers’ retreat. I’ve visited Orkney three times before and it remains one of my favourite places for all sorts of reasons. 

My visit to Transylvania was memorable! Most of my novels are set in my own ancestral territory – Scotland and Ireland – and writing a story set in such a different culture was challenging. I was lucky enough to find a Romanian guide who was a history buff and very ready to take me to out-of-the-way places in search of what I needed for the book. With a regular guide, I might have ended up just doing the well-trodden ‘vampire tourism’ route; and on my own I would have struggled with the language, not to speak of the driving. 

The landscape and historic buildings in Transylvania are stunningly beautiful and full of character. We stayed in local B&Bs. People were not very keen to talk about folk traditions – I would have had to stay much longer and win trust to bring that sort of information out. Rural Romania was a place of stark contrasts: we’d be travelling past flower-dotted fields where workers were cutting hay with scythes, and right next to them there would be a huge derelict factory, stark evidence of the mismanagement of the Ceausescu era.
 
I did use a lot of what I learned on that trip in writing Wildwood Dancing. And I’m sure I still built many errors into the book! It’s a fairy tale story rather than a historical novel. I hope I conveyed a general flavour of the Transylvanian setting, at least.  And then, of course, it was off to Turkey for the sequel, Cybele’s Secret.

You have won multiple awards for your writing. Is there one that is especially memorable or dear to you?

I appreciate them all! The Prix Imaginales deserves a special mention. This award is for best fantasy novel in French translation – I won it for Soeur des Cygnes, which was the French title for Daughter of the Forest. The memorable part was the trophy: a large, bright red statuette of Puss in Boots. Puss is too big for the trophy shelf so he lives on top of a bookcase. Most dear to me: a tie between my first major award, an Aurealis for Son of the Shadows, and my only short fiction award, another Aurealis for By Bone-Light, my contemporary version of the fairy tale Vasilissa the Fair.

How different do you find it writing short stories to novels?
 
Each has its own difficulties. With short fiction you need to refine and refine again, pare the writing down to the perfect words, the perfect turn of phrase, the most economical, effective and powerful way of telling your story. I find writing short fiction rewarding but difficult, and I am very slow at it. Novels come more easily to me, even though they still take a while to write! But some writers find it hard to create a workable structure and to maintain focus in a longer work.

We recently interviewed the co-founder of #FolkloreThursday, to ask about the success of their hashtag on global folklore. Over the time that you have been writing fantasy and historical fantasy, do you feel there has been a resurgence in reader interest in folklore and fairy tales? Did it ever go away? 

I don’t think it ever went away completely, but I agree there’s been a recent resurgence in writing based on fairy tales in particular. It shows up in novels and short fiction, as well as in movies and television series such as Once Upon a Time. 

Have the marketplace and reader interests changed much since your first book was published?
 
The marketplace has certainly changed in the 16 or so years since I wrote Daughter of the Forest. The publishing business was hit badly by the global economic downturn; publishers had to rethink how they functioned with the rise of the e-book; and then there was the proliferation of self-published work that digital publishing made possible. As a result, publishers are far less ready to take risks and writers have to do far more of their own publicity and marketing, with a lot less support than before. There’s a trend currently toward a darker, grittier kind of fantasy, exemplified by writers like Joe Abercrombie. The fantasy genre is very broad, though; there’s room for romantic historical fantasy alongside hip urban fantasy alongside so-called ‘grimdark’.

Is the feeling different getting your twentieth book published to getting your very first book published? 

It is still exciting when a new book comes out, especially if it has a beautiful cover like the ones Arantza Sestayo has done for the Blackthorn & Grim series. But nothing beats seeing your very first book out there on the bookshop shelves. 

How much say do you get on the cover design for your books?

It ranges from zero to quite a lot! With some of the foreign language editions I didn’t even get to see the cover art until the book was published, and there were some highly inappropriate covers as a result. Over the years my US publishers in particular have commissioned some beautiful covers by distinguished illustrators such as Kinuko Y Craft, John Jude Palencar, and more recently Arantza Sestayo, and I count myself very lucky in that.

How do you feel about your earlier works now that you have written so many? Do you ever wish you could go back and change anything?

There are certainly many things I would change if I were writing some of those books now – in particular, I’d fix the errors I made with the history in my earliest books, back in the days when it never occurred to me that readers would expect historical accuracy in a story that was full of magical transformations and Otherworld beings. And I would pare the wordage down in some of the longer books to improve the pacing. Only, of course, I wouldn’t actually do it because I’d much rather write new stories, not revisit the old ones. I hope I keep on learning from my errors.

If a black hole opened up in the middle of the room and you only had time to save three books from your bookshelf, which three would they be and why?
 
What a terrible question! It would have to be the books I couldn’t replace: my mother’s edition of The Golden Staircase (an anthology of classic poetry with colour plates, published in the early 1900s); her edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales; and her hand-written diary.

What are you working on now, and what can we look forward to in the near future?

Den of Wolves, book 3 of the Blackthorn & Grim series, comes out in September here in Australia, and in November in the USA. Look for my novella, Beautiful, later this year in an anthology called Aurum, from Ticonderoga Publications. And I’m currently writing a proposal for a new adult fantasy series, but as my agent hasn’t seen it yet, I can’t give you any further details. 

Anyone interested in finding out more could keep an eye on my blog, where I will post news when I have it.

Giles Paley-Phillips Q&A

Giles Paley-Phillips is the British author of nine books, including The Fearsome Beastie, which sold over 70,000 copies. He is the winner of The People's Book Prize 2012 and The Heart Of Hawick Children's Book Award 2013, and has been shortlisted for The Rotherham Children's Awards 2012 and People's Book Prize 2016. He has played at Glastonbury with his band and made several TV appearances including Good Morning Britain and an author special of BBC2's Eggheads, and is a judge on ITV’s Share a Story. He currently co-hosts the podcast Blank with comedian Jim Daly. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

   

Hi Giles, thanks for stopping by to talk about your new book, One Hundred and Fifty-Two Days, which you are launching through a campaign on Unbound.

The story draws on your own memories of losing a parent. Do you find it easier to write about such and intimate experience than talk about it? Do you ever worry that giving book talks might bring up emotions or questions from readers that might feel uncomfortable, or do you welcome that connection? 

I really welcome the connection, I have had so many messages from people empathising with me and telling me about their own experiences. I'm generally happy to talk about my experiences, but it has been made easier by writing this book.

Being such a personal subject, why did you choose to go with a semi-autobiographical novel rather than a biography? 

I was a lot younger than the protagonist when my mum died, so I didn't have the memories of that time, but I did have a period in my life when I was trying to fathom the loss. That was during my teens and that's why I decided to base the character at that age. 

In writing down the story, did your feelings towards those events, and towards death, change at all?

It certainly helped me to explore those moments and memories, and how I've dealt with my grief more than I had ever done before, and it was pretty bruising. 

This book is written from the perspective of a teenager. Would you class it as YA or is there something in there for adults to take away, too?

It is something I've discussed both with my agent and with editors and now the publisher. It definitely has a crossover feel to it, so I think it will appeal to both YA and adult readers.

You co-host the podcast Blank, exploring those blank moments we face in art and life. You've written this book in free verse, and I was wondering whether you get as many blank moments writing in that style? Does free verse help you to free flow around those stumbling blocks? 

I feel very at home writing in free verse. I've found less blank moments like this than I ever did writing in straight prose.

On the writing process, do your family read what you’re writing and offer suggestions, or do you wait until you have a finished piece to show them? 

I usually wait till it's done before I let anyone look at it, just so they have the whole picture. Even if some of the colours are missing, they can still see the entire sketch.

What advice do you have for writers who want to write about personal experiences but worry about how family or close friends will perceive themselves in that writing? In this story, you talk about a distant father and a scatty grandmother. Do you worry about them reading that, or is it a story you could only tell after they passed? 

I hadn't thought it before, but perhaps this book was easier to write after their passing. I think it's so important to be honest in your writing, even when you're making stuff up, I think you have to keep a level of authenticity.

You’ve chosen to crowdfund this book through Unbound. Could you tell us a bit about what that is and how it is useful to authors? 

It's been a fantastic experience working with Unbound. They really believed in this project and they are really about bringing the story to the reader far more directly than a standard publisher.

I notice you are a patron of Action Aid. Could you tell us a little about how you became involved with them and why? How can people support them?  

I'm very proud to be involved with Action Aid UK. They are an incredible organisation who work with women and children in poverty throughout the world. You can find out more about what they do and how to get involved through their website.

*

 

One Hundred and Fifty-Two Days is due for release early in 2020. You can find out more about the book and help to support it on Unbound.

Ladies of Horror Fiction

Grateful to Ladies of Horror Fiction for giving me a profile on their site. If you like dark fiction, it's well worth checking out. You can also find them on Twitter.

We believe that women in horror fiction are: underrepresented, often lost in the sea of male authors and often unacknowledged for their brilliance

Ladies of Horror Fiction was created to bring about a multi-dimensional way to support women (either cisgender or those who identify as female) who either write in the horror genre or review in it.

This will be done via the website, the podcast, the yearly Instagram Challenge, read-a-longs featuring said authors, and other activities that have not yet been determined.

TEDx Livestream

Hi guys. I've been a little bit quiet recently as I've been off giving a TEDx talk at the University of Luxembourg. It was a fairly intense experience. There was a lot of preparation involved, writing the speech and rewriting it. I left Kigali on 22nd October, arrived in Luxembourg on 23rd, then there was a dress rehearsal, a private coaching session, and then the proper performance on 26th. So, it was all go.

Thankfully, the team and the speakers were absolutely fantastic. It was such a supportive environment and a wonderful chance to talk about ideas and passions. A truly incredible experience.

They're currently editing the speeches now, so there will be a bright, glossy version which I will post later on, but if you don't want to wait, the livestream is still available here. It's rough and ready, but what people were watching on the day.

I'm currently holed up in The Hague with my lovely cousin Tamsin and her fella, Guido. Eating, drinking and attempting to survive the freezing cold weather before flying back to a sensible climate on Wednesday.

BBC World Service Interview

Did a little interview with BBC World Service about me and Dés's piano building project. Starts around 48 mins in. Unfortunately, due to my internet connection at the moment, I can't actually listen to it, so hope it's okay!

If it is no longer available on the BBC, you can listen to it here.

Adrian Magson Q&A

 

Adrian Magson is the author of a wide selection of gripping crime and spy thrillers, a YA ghost novel and Write On! - a writers’ help book. His latest book is Rocco and the Nightingale, the fifth in the Inspector Rocco series. It came out with The Dome Press on 19th October 2017 in the UK.

A regular reviewer for Shots Magazine, Adrian also writes the Beginners and New Author pages for Writing Magazine.

Find him on his website, blog and Twitter.

Hi Adrian. Welcome back to Deckle-Edged. Always a real pleasure to chat to you about your work. Last time, you talked a bit about writing female characters. This time, I want to ask you about your life as a crime writer.

Who were the crime writers you read growing up? Who got you hooked?

Leslie 'The Saint' Charteris was undoubtedly the first, at age eight. Him and Zane Grey, who wrote westerns which I regard as crime novels on horseback, followed by Mickey Spillane, Hank Janson and some other harder-boiled crime writers. Then it was the likes of Alistair MacLean, Adam Diment, Peter O’Donell (who wrote Modesty Blaise), Berkeley Mather and Gavin Lyall. Some of these won't mean much to younger crime readers, but they formed the backbone for my love of crime and spy thrillers, and basically made me want to be a writer. I figured telling stories must be a cool way to make a living. Mmm... took a while!

Did you start out writing crime or have you written other genres? What was the point in your career where you finally realised that crime was your calling?

My first published short story was a crime caper for a newspaper, followed by a few which didn't sell. But my first regular sales were to women's magazines, and basically romance and relationship stories, about as far removed from crime as you could get. Men were secondary and there was nothing allowed 'beneath the chin'. It taught me to write for a market, meet deadlines and word counts, so it acted as my apprenticeship and lasted many years. In between, I wrote half a dozen crime and spy thrillers which didn't sell, features for magazines, which did, a short play, slogans for T-shirts and beer mats. Essentially, anything I could sell and get my creds as a writer. In the end, I thought if I enjoyed writing crime and spy stuff so much, I should put all my efforts into it. That's when I sold my first book featuring a young female reporter called Riley Gavin.

If you could work a case with any fictional detective from literature or television, who would it be and why?

Sadly, though I write crime novels, I'd be pretty rubbish at solving them. I tend to get distracted too easily, and would probably arrest the first person who annoyed me and didn't answer my questions.

So, being a crime writer doesn't give you an edge with other crime series? 

I wish it did! I'm so often wrong. I just go with the flow and enjoy the surprises. I think I probably over-analyse who does what, and why, too much and it gets in the way of things. My wife, Ann, usually gets the guilty party way before I do.

What's the last plot that left you stumped, or where you guessed the wrong person? 

The Cuckoo's Calling was the most recent I can recall - and I was dead wrong.

Do you always know who dunnit before starting your own novels? If so, how difficult is it not to let slip or give the game away whilst you're writing? 

I suppose most of my books could be classed as 'why-dunnits', so I have an idea of the ideal culprit from fairly early on as, in some cases, do the readers. For me, the baddy is as essential to the book as the central character, so I have to get that fixed in my mind. That doesn't mean I might not change it halfway through writing. And yes, sometimes the characters do force their way to the front!

Why did you choose to set Rocco's adventures in France? How much research goes into setting a crime novel in a different country and legal system to the UK?

I went to school in a tiny rural village called Picardie in northern France. After writing five Riley Gavin crime novels and a Harry Tate spy thriller called Red Station, I wondered if I could write a crime novel set in France during the sixties - yes, that long ago. I figured that nobody else would have used it as a setting, so why not? 

I knew the places, the people and the atmosphere, so it was simply a matter of doing what all writers do, which was to come up with a plot or two. I like to use some elements of French history as a hook on which to hang the story. For example, echoes of World War Two and their own Vietnam War, the Indochina War, in which Inspector Lucas Rocco served. There's also the effects of Algerian independence, the assassination attempts on President de Gaulle, and what was a very changing society. These were mostly incidental background to the plots, but still required accuracy of research. Being a series, it's actually the characters who come out as most important. 

The French judicial and police systems are very different to ours. Trying to explain too much of the detail can easily get in the way of the story. I try to keep it to the plot, the crime and the characters, and smooth out all the technical bumps.

You write several crime series: Rocco, Portman, Gonzales & Vaslik, Gavin & Palmer, and Tate. If they were all working a case together, who would team up, who would start a fight and who would have a fling?

What a great question! I'm not sure they would all mix at all well. Rocco, the French detective, would shrug them off and do his own thing, quite apart from being in a different era. Portman, a freelance protector, would find a high spot with a sniper rifle. Harry Tate, ex-MI5, would wonder why he should bother. Gonzales and Vaslik, private security company investigators, would argue the merits then ignore the others and get on with it. Riley Gavin and Frank Palmer, her ex-RMP sidekick, would only get involved if there was a story to it. Actually, I reckon Riley Gavin might have a fling with Harry Tate. She likes ex-military types.

You've recently signed with The Dome Press. What are your hopes for the future?

Well, the first four books in the Lucas Rocco series were published by Alison & Busby. But they decided they didn't want any more back in 2014, so I got on with writing my other series instead. However, I had the nagging feeling that there were more stories for Rocco to experience. The problem was, it's very tough selling a new book which is part of a series when another publisher retains the publishing and distribution rights to the first ones. I happened to mention this one day to David Headley, who owns The Dome Press. He recognised the problem but, very bravely in my view, took on the challenge and agreed to publish Rocco and the Nightingale. I'm already working on another book for them. It's not a Rocco book, but I have started work on a sixth Rocco one. So, I guess you can say I'm hopeful for the future! Having worked with David and his team, especially my editor, Rebecca Lloyd, and seen the quality of their production, I feel very enthusiastic.

What's your advice for anyone aspiring to be a crime writer in today's market?

I've been writing the Beginners page in Writing Magazine for fourteen years now, out of which came a compilation called Write On! It's a writer's help book, which is full of tips and advice. Plug over. My advice is, if you have a desire to write crime fiction, you already read lots of it and know the general format,  sit down and write whatever's in your head. Don't over-analyse, just put together characters, setting and a good crime to solve, and let your imagination go. Doesn't matter if it ends up as a short story. The thing is, write something and see where you go. The main thing is, enjoy it, because if you have fun writing it, that will show through and it will make the job so much easier.

When a minor Paris criminal is found stabbed in the neck on a country lane in Picardie it looks like another case for Inspector Lucas Rocco. But instead he is called off to watch over a Gabonese government minister, hiding out in France following a coup. Meanwhile, Rocco discovers that there is a contract on his head taken out by an Algerian gang leader with a personal grudge against him.

Emma Interviews George R.R. Martin

In Emma style, for those of you who don't know... Emma Newman is the voice behind the Rosy Hours audiobook. She's also a very successful author in her own right, and runs the Hugo award winning podcast, Tea & Jeopardy. In this special live edition from Worldcon, she interviews Game of Thrones creator, George R.R. Martin.

Transgressive

DevilHousePress, also related to Black Bile Press, Urban Graffiti and Go Fuck Yourself Press, have been exploring the theme of transgressive by interviewing authors to ask what they feel it means. Here's my tuppence worth.

Angel Uwamahoro

In my spare time, I've been trying to put together a little writing community in Kigali. Using social media to connect and share info. You can find it here: Twitter, Facebook Page, Facebook Community Group.

I've just finished an interview with poet Angel Uwamahoro for the website.

It was such a pleasure to interview her. She's extremely talented.

Hoping that through this small community I might start finding other writers in Rwanda to help build the Creative Kigali project. There's a very small publishing industry starting to take form, but one of their big problems is finding work to publish. Loads of literacy courses for children, but I'm hoping to inspire a few adults with this in September. If you live in Kigali, please help by printing off one of these flyers. Cut between the lines and pop it up somewhere people might find it. Thanks!

Happy Birthday #FolkloreThursday

One of my Favourite Mythological Thingies
The Polish Fire Flower

No, its not a Thursday, but it is the one year anniversary of the birth of #FolkloreThursday. One of the greatest inventions ever.

To celebrate, I'd like to share an interview with founder DeeDee Chainey. The interview was originally posted on Pagan Writers Community blog (Facebook). It's reproduced here because, well, I own the site and I can.

So, without further ado, I unveil to you the sheer splendour, the absolute waking joy, that is Folklore Thursday.

Go lose yourselves.

If you're on Twitter, you can't help but notice the hashtag #FolkloreThursday (@FolkloreThurs). It's become something of a phenomenon, even attracting BBC attention. There's now an accompanying website, helping to bring together folklore from around the world. This week, Dee Dee Chainey (@DeeDeeChainey), one of the founding members of #FolkloreThursday, dropped by to answer some questions.

Hi Dee Dee, thanks for joining us. Thursdays are perhaps our favourite day of the week since #FolkloreThursday took off.

For those who don't know, please could you tell us what #FolkloreThursday is and how it came about?

#FolkloreThursday is a weekly hashtag day on Twitter where people can share all things folklore related! Willow and I had been chatting on Twitter for a while, and thought it would be really great if there was a place to go to find out all about folklore. We were already taking part in a lot of the hashtag days, and then the idea came to us that a hashtag day would be a great way to get people together talking about folklore! We planned it for a while, set a date for the launch, and it all went from there!

Why is folklore important in the modern age?

Great question – I really do think folklore is important! I think, in the past, it was a great way to convey social norms and expectations – as well as important lessons – from generation to generation. While many of our social rules today have changed to the ones we see in folklore, narrative folklore really does act as a system of archetypes that give a focus point for us all to reflect on the issues that do still affect us today, particularly through examining the symbols and memes many of us take for granted. Narrative, and other types of folklore, are a great way of connecting to a shared heritage, and an excellent way of learning about cultures: our own and other peoples, allowing us to negotiate ideas, not only about how we’re different, but about how we are all the same; the passing on of traditions and stories are intrinsically human, and something we can all come together to share.

What's been your favourite piece of folklore posted by a participant?

My absolute favourite? Well, that’s a difficult one! I do love ‘body parts’ folklore... so I suppose I have a particular penchant for the Hand of Glory: the ‘guilty’ hand of a hanged murderer that can be lit like a candle, and then be used for all kinds of mischief. Some sources say it will paralyse anyone who sees it, others that it will open a locked door.

Why did you decide to start a website?

We thought it would be great to have a place to gather a lot of the stuff shared on #FolkloreThursday, and have a ‘hub’ for the hashtag that everyone could come to throughout the week. A lot of people said they wished everyday was #FolkloreThursday. I suppose, with the website, it can be!

Does #FolkloreThursday predominantly focus on British folklore, or is it global?

It’s definitely a global thing. We have people from all over the world joining in each Thursday, and they share folklore from all over the place. We’d love to see more diverse folklore each week. We love seeing folklore from people and places we’ve never heard of before!

Have you noticed any similarities in folklore around the world?

Definitely! A lot of the stories shared have very similar themes and plots, particularly those from across Europe and Scandinavia. Some folklore that does stand out to me personally is some of the Japanese stuff, the Yōkai for example. It’s so unique... reading a Japanese folktale is like an adventure – you never know where it’s going to take you!

What's the scariest folklore monster so far?

Ooh, great question! I think I’d have to choose the Encantado from the South American folklore. Legend tells that they are spirits that take the form of dolphins from the Amazon River, then take on human form at night, leaving the waters to seduce unsuspecting human women. They sometimes kidnap humans, and can cause illness, or even death... creepy!

Do you have any theories on why #FolkloreThursday has become so incredibly popular? What is it about folklore that attracts people?

I think maybe it’s different for everyone. We see people using folklore in so many ways: academics, writers using it for inspiration, artists, people relating to it as part of their belief system, others engaging just for fun or escapism. I do wonder how much the interest might be in response to the increase in technology in our daily lives, and things like that. Historically, you do see people turn to the past, as well as to myth and story, for a sense of grounding and reassurance at times of political and social instability.

Personally, I think the current political climate and the trend towards globalisation might have something to do with the resurgence in story, but also with reconstituting a sense of identity and heritage for people. From a #FolkloreThursday perspective though, I would say we’re just pleased that people love it as much as we do, and we’re happy they’re engaging, whatever their motivations! We keep saying it, but we firmly believe that folklore belongs to everyone – it’s a treasure trove of information, and really quite magical at the same time – it’s a way of bringing wonder and awe back into everyday life, and it’s important to have that.

Is folklore in danger of dying out?

From what we’ve seen on the hashtag day, I’d definitely say no! It’s amazing how many things are going on around the world using folklore – from books, to films, theatre productions, as well as a host of local community projects working to get people excited about folklore! I think the popularity of folklore and legends must have risen over the last few years. I’m not sure whether books, films and TV shows like Harry Potter, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Song of the Sea, and the like, have led to the increased interest or have been made because producers realised it’s popular, but you can certainly see a definite trend. And people have responded to that. Folklore has become something that most people are aware of now, in varying degrees.

What are your hopes for the future of #FolkloreThursday?

At the moment we’re still working on getting the website filled with top-notch folklore articles. After that? Well, you’ll just have to stay tuned and wait and see...

How can people participate?

#FolkloreThursday runs every Thursday on Twitter, from 9am to 8pm British time (with a few short breaks in the middle!). To participate, people just need to post their tweet with the hashtag on the end: that means just type the hashtag symbol followed by the words ‘Folklore’ and ‘Thursday’ with no spaces. The tweet will appear in the hashtag feed publicly and everyone will be able to see your post if they’re following the hashtag!

We do have a detailed guide explaining how to get involved and what to post for #FolkloreThursday. 

Ghostwoods Weekend Interviews

Eeep!

Super excited. My publisher, Ghostwoods Books, have just launched their super sparkly new website.

To celebrate, they've been interviewing their authors.

You can listen to me talking about myself, and my forthcoming novel. Sorry for the umms and aahs folks, I am working on it. I still get that rabbit-in-the-headlights sensation during live interviews. 

I'm also going to add links to the other interviews as they come up - I think there's eleven in all - so bookmark this post and check back, or follow Ghostwoods on Twitter for the latest.

Ghostwoods Weekend Interviews

(interview schedule)

Marion Grace Woolley
Leeman Kessler
Lynne Hardy
Peter Rawlik
Michael Grey
Mike Davis
John Reppion
Daniel Marc Chant
E. Dane Anderson
Lucy Brady
Yma Johnson

SHJ School Essays

Last month I did a Skype interview with Year Seven at Sir Harry Johnston International School (@SHJSecondary), Malawi. It was part of a monthly author talk facilitated by my friend Col (@touristcol) who currently works there, and following in the footsteps of the lovely Adrian Magson.

We had a brilliant chat all about the books we love reading, the stories we love writing, and the publishing process. Each of the students went away and wrote up their accounts of what was said, and I'd love to share some of my favourite bits with you...

Marion is an amazing author because she enjoys writing books. She was born in the UK but lives in and loves Rwanda in Africa. The amazing author mostly writes books for adults. Let me tell you all about her... - Zahid 

Marion said she liked reading a lot us a child. She enjoyed reading lots of different books. She also just got to play or watch television... - James 

Marion was bad at punctuation and grammar. She said “I was good at other things but grammar was hard and so was punctuation”. But she didn’t give up; she kept on trying and then managed to get better at the technical part of writing. - Mphukira 

When we asked her what she does if she runs out of ideas, she said "you cannot run out of ideas. If you run out, the world is full of ideas.” Those words inspired us to write. Your mind is full of ideas so there is a limitless amount of stories that you can create. - Angelo 

“In all books there is always some part of real life. You write what you imagine, you imagine what you live,” explained Marion. She also said “In some books while you’re writing you run out of ideas, so if that ever happens, relax for a bit, take a break and eventually you will get your inspiration.” - Zahid 

If you get stuck on sentence or if you are generally stuck, go out and do something, that’s what she said. “Enjoy life and it will inspire you.” I think that’s true because life does inspire you to do more... Ms.Woolley told us she loves writing historical fantasy stories based in the past. She says, “It’s like having a time machine and going back to re-write the past.” - Adam 

She said that her favourite book depended on her age, but there were two series that she enjoyed most. The first was Point Horror. These were short and easy to get into, but it kept her awake at night. The other was Fighting Fantasy books which were very important, “It’s not a novel, you choose your own adventure,” she said. It taught her how to write and create worlds... Ms. Woolley told us that she doesn’t based characters on people she know. “It’s not a good idea.” People could get upset. Some people think they see themselves in characters because stories influence how people see themselves. - Trang Anh

When Marion is writing she likes villains because she says it is easier to surprise your reader. This author mostly reads dark stories because they used to keep her awake at night when she read them, also because they have very interesting villains. To write a scary story you have to remember it's what you don't tell them. “Don't give them monsters, give them footsteps.” - Sam 

Talking to Marion was a great experience because we have learnt new skills in our writing. She loves what she does and I think what she does is amazing too. Marion has told us a lot and I’m looking forward to applying it to my next piece of writing. I’d like to thank you Marion Woolley. I really enjoyed our Skype-a-view! - Tamika

What a thoroughly lovely, lively and engaging group of students. It really was a pleasure to talk with them. 

If you're an author interested in inspiring the next generation of readers, drop Col a tweet in the new year to ask about opportunities for outreach. 

Sir Harry Johnston International School

Had a lovely time this morning talking to Year Seven at Sir Harry Johnston International School (@SHJSecondary), Malawi. 

My friend Col works there as an English teacher and he's started a monthly author talk. Last month they spoke with crime writer Adrian Magson, which made national news. Was a really good session, and the students had prepared some challenging interview questions about my writing process, my influences and background. It was great to hear about what they're reading too: Neil Gaiman and one of my nephew's favourites, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, among others. Hoping to catch up with Col back in the UK over Christmas, and I've been promised a write-up of the interview, which I'll post here on my blog.

If you're an author and you're interested in helping to inspire tomorrow's writers, drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with Col.