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I am constantly exhorting writers to avoid adverbs, but to use instead “strong verbs”. And they respond by saying, “Okay, but what is a strong verb, and how do we recognise it when we see it?” At [...]

Let’s make the world a better place AC (After Corona) Nothing is certain. So, if Covid 19 has taught us anything, it is that we should seize the day and never defer our dreams. Much has [...]

Some critics have called Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina the greatest novel ever to have been written. Be that as it may, I want to devote today’s rumination to a single conversation that takes place [...]

Most of us who love to write grew up as voracious readers, with a deep and visceral love for books. I know I did, anyway. It is cliche, and yet true, for me to say that it is books that made me [...]

I love it when good writers give advice on “small issues”. When would-be writers sit at the feet of writers they admire, they’re often looking for pointers on the grand roll-out of plot, or ideas [...]

We want to be part of the solution. We can’t do anything about the virus, but hopefully we can make your lockdown easier to bear. And we know you’re anxious: we want to give you something [...]

To be a writer, of fiction or nonfiction, one needs an immense amount of creativity. Coming up with new worlds, evoking places in the reader’s imagination, conjuring up characters, crafting [...]

There are on the lake on which our houseboat is moored cormorants and swans, black-headed gulls and common terns, mallard ducks and moorhens, a resident heron, a pair of crested grebes, coots and [...]

I was listening to someone quoting Elmore Leonard the other day – and then she laughed. And she’s right: he is funny. I mean, “Leave out the bits that readers tend to skip”? What does that mean? [...]

There are at least two reasons that writers should always have a book on their bedside table, or be immersed in several books simultaneously. (The New York Times regularly runs interviews with [...]

We’ve decided, through the lock-down, and perhaps beyond, to run a series of free webinars to keep you going through these interesting times. We’re holding the next one on Wednesday 15 April at [...]

Stuck at home, and stuck in the middle? Many of you are stuck at home – and longing to get back to the writing project you started in a flush of enthusiasm. The only trouble is, you stopped [...]