🇺🇸-born, 🇬🇧-based, novelist. Latest novel, "Tomorrow The Grace," out now.
It appears there will be lots more STAY HOME viewing as a new national anti-COVID “lockdown” is in force across the U.K. again.. Netflix, etc., are fine. But social media will again also be where we might turn for some interaction.
Read more "If You Are Home, Too (Again)… Hello!"
The Chaperone is a reasonably entertaining film and a decent way to pass 1 hour and 50 minutes in the pandemic. However, if you want to LEARN about the real Louise Brooks and of the history of that time please read a history book…
Read more "“Norma” And “Louise”"
The major reason I am a writer is my (now late) uncle (a crime novelist who died in 2015) urged me to give it a go. I would never have had the courage to do so if not for him.
Back in the 1990s he began to get on at me to write a novel…
Read more "Winding Down Another Year"
It is a clichéd and frenzied near-panto that reminded me often of a high school stage production that is always moments from turning into a “Saturday Night Live” skit. For an hour, I sat there stunned: I could NOT understand the praise for it.
Read more "That Mis-Imagined Era"
Yes, we have FaceTime and such; but in terms of in person contact we may be now in much the same position as they were in “1799.”
Read more "“I cannot wait to see you again”"
This may be a difficult season of the year for many even in good times. However, 2020 is perhaps the worst Christmas season in decades. For many more people than usual it is indeed the absolute worst Christmas of their lives.
Read more "If This Is Your Worst Of Times"
Poland will play a part in the story. But I am saying no more here right now. 😉
Read more "On Page One"
Underneath language differences we are all basically the same. Wordless photography on Instagram can help remind us of that fact.
Read more "When Words Will Not Do"
We flew back here to London on Friday evening. We are now re-acclimating time-zone-wise. However, we cannot go out for 10 days.
Read more "From “Self-Isolation”"
What the hell has happened? Many in the country are clearly fearful of innovation, fearful of the future, indeed seemingly fearful of EVERYTHING they do not immediately understand.
Read more "This Winter Of Disarray"
As promised at the end of the previous post: several of the historical men… and their fictional influences.
Read more "Who “Are” They? (Part II)"
Real women in history have a major impact on my writing – in fictionalization. For that is the nature of writing fiction: I believe all fictionalization is invariably sourced – even subconsciously – from real people a writer has, in some way, shape, or form, bumped into somewhere in life.
Read more "Who “Are” They?"
We have always had trouble defining with precision what makes an American; but that is actually not a bad thing because that creates a flexibility about boundaries and allows the identity more easily to evolve.
Read more "The (Endlessly Evolving) American"
Hello! I know I have been quiet this past week. Let me explain: We are in New York, in the Catskills, at our house here, and have just completed a “mini-quarantine” under New York anti-Covid guidelines for arriving travelers.
Read more "Hurdles Of Pandemic Travel"
I do not expect, or even hope…
…to be able to please every reader.
And I do not count words as I write.
Read more "Words Written"