Historian? Author? Writer?
One day, Rebecca Rideal wrote a history book, intended for the general, non-academic reader. You know the type – the sort of person who is interested in h...
Author: admin
Wherein the author poses in a bookshop
Today, I went to Waterstones in Birmingham and saw Poison Panic on the shelf. It was my book! In a book shop! Not only does my book exist, but… it ...
Poison Panic book launch party
I wasn’t sure about having a book launch party. Was organising it going to be a lot of faff when I wanted to crack on with book #2? But in the end, I thou...
Live Poison Panic Twitter Q and A
My book Poison Panic is published on Thursday 30th June. Join me between 12pm and 2pm for a live Twitter questions and answers session. Use the hashtag #poisonp...
Shadow drawings
One of the reasons why Alfred Swaine Taylor is an interesting person to write about is that, when he wasn’t rummaging through jars of human innards lookin...
How to index a book – or not
Apart from the obvious difference between fiction and non-fiction – one’s pretend and the other isn’t (more or less) – a non-fiction tex...
Birmingham RNA Writers Day
Writing can be a lonely endeavour, so it’s great that there’s ways for us to meet up. There’s local groups, or there’s associations and ...
Cousin Fred’s garden mausoleum
What I am about to write might surprise you. Or perhaps not, given that it’s written by someone who’s posed with a skull (don’t worry, it wasn...
Interview: Verity Holloway and “Beauty Secrets of the Martyrs”
I was on holiday in Kefalonia as a child when I saw my first dead body: the rather wrinkly 16th century St. Gerasimus. He wasn’t on view for tourists, onl...
You don’t need a typewriter to tell a story
It was the mid-80s: Cliff Richard was on telly, our video player was the size of a small family car, my mum had a perm. My dad’s fondness for pictures of ...