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I REALLY MISS MY DAD

You will find Dad’s sonnet in the memory garden in Horsham park. I don’t believe in an afterlife and I’m inclined to cringe when people talk to their dead relatives in books or television dramas. None the less, I often find myself drawn to the park bench beneath Dad’s poem after my daily swim. OfContinue reading “I REALLY MISS MY DAD”

Ten Random Things I’ve Learned About Publishing

TEN RANDOM THINGS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT PUBLISHING (WITHOUT THE CYNICAL STUFF!) When my new middle-grade novel ‘Zak Monroe Is (Not) My Friend’ (UCLan) comes out on April 3rd it will be my tenth published work of fiction. To mark that milestone (well it feels like a milestone to me) I thought I’d make a listContinue reading “Ten Random Things I’ve Learned About Publishing”

Three Things I Have Learned From Self-Help Books

THREE THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM SELF-HELP BOOKS. As a fully qualified neurotic, I’m rather susceptible to books that offer simple (non-medical) solutions to all my perceived problems. I can’t remember when I read my first self-help book. It was probably shortly after leaving university when I was trying vainly to establish myself as anContinue reading “Three Things I Have Learned From Self-Help Books”

Three Things I Would Recommend

Being a registered pedant, I’m always slightly gleeful when an on-line survey includes the question: ‘on a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend us?’ The answer is practically always, 1. NEVER. And if there’s room for a comment, I will ‘helpfully’ explain that I wouldn’t recommend a bank, for instance,Continue reading “Three Things I Would Recommend”

THAT’S WHEN NEIGHBOURS JUST HAD TO END

THAT’S WHEN NEIGHBOURS JUST HAS TO END Next week, Channel Five will broadcast the final episodes of the Australian soap opera, Neighbours. As a regular viewer for the last thirty-seven years (apart from a brief period in my late twenties when I didn’t have a television) it’s been one of my most enduring relationships, soContinue reading “THAT’S WHEN NEIGHBOURS JUST HAD TO END”