Applying The Seat of My Trousers To The Seat of My chair ….
Kingsley Amis once famously said, “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one’s trousers to the seat of one’s chair.” In other words, a writer has to be practica...
Kingsley Amis once famously said, “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one’s trousers to the seat of one’s chair.” In other words, a writer has to be practica...
Marianne Wheelaghan The lesser developed Republic of Kiribati is a necklace of 33 small islands and atolls, slap bang in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. According to the World Tourism Organization (U...
The need to vanquish the forces of evil is much in the news at the moment as Presidents and Prime Ministers grapple with an intractable situation in the Middle East and in particular the rise of Isil....
Prize 1: Signed paperback of The Last Winter of Dani Lancing plus an exclusive Summer of Ghosts badge Prize 2: Signed hardback of Summer of Ghosts plus an exclusive Summer of Ghosts badge We ad...
I read about new technology in the newspapers, I try to keep up. I have a phone that is so smart I have no real idea of what it can do. I have a car that talks. In the last couple of months I’ve dippe...
A month or two ago I managed to get a letter published in The Times. The bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo is coming up next year and the paper had been addressing itself towards various celebrati...
Our latest giveaway is thanks to the folk at Noirwich and is to win all of these fab SIGNED books. One lucky winner will receive t...
I’ve been a writer for nearly thirty years, that’s what it says on my tax returns, so going back to square one, becoming the new kid again, the ingénue, is a bit of a challenge. But I’m a debut crime...
Twenty seven years ago I saw Alan Bennett sitting on a wall in the Yorkshire village of Heckmondwikestaring at passers-by and taking notes. When my father and I, two southerners passed by he made note...
‘I wonder if I have annoyed Linda recently?’ said a friend sitting down to dinner at my house after looking at my collection of true crime books. Crime and cooking have both been great interests of mi...
Multi-tasking is an essential ability for a writer. Hands and mind can work simultaneously and independently, and there can be one issue engaging the forefront of the mind while another is still worki...
Recently I was asked to describe a typical working day as a writer. Years ago when I worked in an office I knew exactly what a typical day was – I went to the same place five days a week, and did the...
‘I groaned out loud. I was never going to get my wallet back, Ackerman wasn’t going to get his photograph back and, as a reward, he was going to boil my bones down to glue. My destiny was to hol...
One question writers are often asked is whether they listen to music when they are writing, and if so what are their favourite tracks. Some say they just listen for pleasure, others find actual inspir...
Being a Canadian mystery writer is a lot like being a Who in Dr. Seuss’s Who-ville. We may live in the second largest country on the planet, but the small size of our population severely limits our ho...
The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival attracts hundreds of the world’s leading authors, journalists, comedians, politicians, actors, broadcasters and more. Big names appearing...
First of all, let me be clear about the subject matter. When I talk about independent publishing, I mean being traditionally published but by a smaller press that is not part of a larger conglo...
Watching TV these days, you’d think that something odd is happening to the form of the story. Instead of watching a series, we’ve now started to devour whole boxed sets of Broadchurch or The Bridge. I...
During the 2014 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, authors had the opportunity to pitch their novel ideas to a panel of prominent publishers and agents – the “Dragons” in the title. The f...
Author Ann Cleeves is offering libraries free materials for staging a murder mystery event, ‘Murder in the Ravenswick Hotel’. Her story is set in a fictional Shetland hotel, and invites an audience to...
Joining the CRA is FREE. There are no lengthy forms to fill out and we need nothing but your email. You will receive a regular newsletter but no spam.