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We like to say that the best beginning – of a book or short story – should contain a hook and a promise. Hook your reader, and promise them more. That’s fine in theory, posed one of our [...]

Writers are born, not made. True or false? It’s an interesting question because it puts on the table the issue of whether bad writers can become good writers. On a recent webinar we suggested [...]

I’ve been watching Dark, the fabulously complex story of time travel and alternate universes, on Netflix – and am currently drowning in that very complexity midway through the third season. Time [...]

Post-apocalyptic is the new normal, it sometimes seems. And the introduction of heady doses of sex into science and fantasy fiction – think Game of Thrones and The Handmaid’s Tale, among others – [...]

Here’s a thing: in our bookshop in Wigtown, south Galloway, we have, at a rough estimate, some five thousand books. They’re all second-hand, of course – and they fall into a wide variety of [...]

I wish I had a coin for every time we’ve been asked: “But can you teach creative writing?” Here’s the way we usually answer it. If you’re writing now or trying to begin, you’ll know that writing [...]

Hi fellow writers, Trish and I have been planning our annual trip to our boat in England for the summer (lucky us), but have encountered a number of delays that mean we’ll be here for six weeks [...]