Books

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Dear Molly, I was thinking of you the other day, when I was appearing at the Festival of Writing and Ideas at Borris House in County Carlow. The festival took ...

As a veteran solo traveller I’m often asked when the best time in life to take a trip by yourself is, and my answer is always now. I’m constantly meeting ...

Bath’s House of Frankenstein, the world-first attraction dedicated to Mary Shelley, celebrates its one-year anniversary on 19 July. To mark the occasion, Chris Harris, the co-founder and director offers in-depth insight ...

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Why is it we find concepts like ‘self-care’ or ‘being unapologetic for being ourselves’ so challenging to implement? The long and short of it is: we live our lives overstretched. ...

When people ask me what I was just thinking about, I usually just say “Oh, nothing”. It would be a little too complicated to explain the truth. Most people don‘t ...

Five years ago I made a trip through the deserts of Jordan with a group of friends in a hire car. Two days in, while we were in the desert, the ...

I didn’t necessarily set out to be an author. From the youngest age, flicking through the local free community newspaper, I knew I wanted to be a journalist. I loved ...

1. I am severely deaf and partially sighted due to long-term conditions. This has made me aware of the need for better accessibility and has, I hope, made me an ...

Every Easter Monday, in the village of Biddenden in Kent, a queue of elderly residents forms outside the old village workhouse, which has now been converted into residential property. At ...

I sold my first novel, A Hand to Hold in Deep Water, on the crest of sixty. Now sixty-three, I’m looking forward to the release of my next novel, The Precious Jules. ...

- The island of Parris: paradise or poison? Luca Laine Thomas lives in Parris, the beautiful island plagued by the unsolved deaths of young women - most significantly, Luca's best ...

1) I left school at 16 with only a handful of O Levels and unwittingly enrolled in the cliched ‘University of Life’. Over the next few years, I fell in ...

Play to your strengths: If you’re good at drawing horses, write a graphic novel about a horse. If you like drawing cars or machinery, write a story involving those. I like ...

As we walked in the shadow of the Parthenon some years back, my best friend cleared her throat and said, in the tone of one confessing to a murder, "I ...

I have a confession to share. One day in June, I spent an hour on deadline day deciding whether I needed a teapot-shaped handbag instead of finishing my novel. To ...

-  Hi Jane, It’s me again! I feel like I’m constantly Twittering at you, trying to moderate my admiration for you and your books and play it cool, and always ...

I was admitted into the Queen’s University Fine Art Program in Kingston, Ontario, in 1995. I swore I wouldn’t go to Queen’s, because my brother was two years into his ...

Dear Lynda, I must have been totally bonkers not to reach out to you sooner. But it was deliberate, I promise. Let me explain. No one can accuse me of ...

If you are female and want to run a marathon, there are thousands of races all over the world to choose from. The only real challenge you face is training ...

I adore psychological thrillers. I guess it was blockbusters like Gone Girl that got me hooked on this genre. I love the way they delve into the human mind, analysing ...

It was so easy to write every thought and feeling my main character, Jackie, would have. So why did I find describing her face so difficult? If she’s got blue ...

THE WHITE HARE is a novel about the deep connection between landscape and people and how we often lose touch with the things that matter. Two damaged women and a ...