Rae of Light

October in the UK is nominated Black History Month [BHM].  I remember when I was a teacher this fact always grieved me.  The achievement of black people in history should be an on-going thing and not only allocated a single month in the year.  Children should be more aware of the achievements of people of colour than being able to rattle off names like Mary Seacole or Nelson Mandela come end October.  And we adults shouldn’t have to refer to lists such as 10 Black Authors Everyone Should Read . In my own field, I confess my knowledge of black authors is restricted to Americans such as Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison.  I’ve only read a smattering of other poets and authors:  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, John Agard, Imtiaz Dharker, Malorie Blackman.  As an author of colour this shames me. In an attempt to wash away some of my shame I’m going to do a little bit for BHM with this feature on a well-known writer born in 1802.  ...

       Joyce Bailey I live in North London with husband Jim and son Paul. I was born in Scotland and moved south in late 1960s to live in Essex, then Suffolk where my nearing completion novel, All the Bright Days, is set. I've had many jobs (all grist to a writer's mill) including one in a cosmetics factory (features in above novel) but for several years have worked as a medical secretary combined with intermittent freelance writing for magazines and newspapers.  Some years ago I made a conscious decision to drop factual writing for fiction and found the creative writing courses I did with the WEA (tutor Stewart Permutt ) and with Caroline Natzler extremely helpful in setting me off on the fiction writing path. SNOWFLAKES I told myself: don’t go on the internet, don’t keep looking at how to write, how to do a novel.   But in the end I did and I found this thing called the Snowflake Method .   What appealed to me is it’s writt...

So I’m talking social media again because it’s become a regular thing for me.  I now maintain my author page on Facebook on an almost daily basis and I’m getting a lot more confident about tweeting since the new phone came into my life.  Have even figured out how to add pictures. But now I’ve got another site taking up my time and attention.  I mentioned I was researching social media sites to my friend and ex lodger, Olivia and she thought Pinterest would be perfect for me because I’m so attracted to unusual or striking images. I was a little sceptical when I read the online info about it but signed on and began to play.   Then Chantelle Atkins mentioned in a Facebook post she likes it too because you can do storyboards and memes for novels you’ve published or are working on.   I had already created storyboards and was glad I was on the right track in my use of the site as a way for my readers to see how my ideas for novels come together in v...

                       Ian Richardson “I am a South London based writer who, after a near death incident, started acting around four years ago and resumed writing about a year later. It seemed like a good  idea. My work, including short stories, poetry and short plays has received professional rehearsed readings in local literary festivals and events. Two full length pantos have been performed in Community Theatre runs.   http://thcentre.com/tag/panto/ GENRE I don’t write in any particular genre.  Lots of it is mining incidents from my own life particularly childhood.  What I’ve been writing is somewhere between short story and Gonzo journalism.  I’ve recently reread some short stories by Heinrich Boll .  Some of them are only five pages long and nothing happens in them really.  But they’re absolutely intense.  They pull you in.  If I had a choi...

So I'm on Twitter and even have a new phone to make those all important tweets more of a possibility.  To date I've tweeted about my first strawberries, redecorating my spare room and what's going on in my writing world. I also did a bit of research to see if there were any other sites out there which suited my personality better than the 140 character restriction of Twitter. That in itself proved time consuming and confusing. There's just so many of them. See what I mean? It forced me to ask myself if joining a whole load of different social media sites was really right for me. I can see some serious downfalls. It's a time consuming business and there are so many things to get distracted by. There's the danger of drowning in the vast ocean of Twitter, Pinterest, facebook, tumblr, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, flickr..... Added to this, all the Social Media focus could lead to not doing what we (writers) really want to be doi...

       Emma Flint Emma Flint was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, lived in Scotland for eight years and is now an award-winning Technical Author in London. She says of her writing, "I want to poke around in the darker reaches of the human mind, and explore what people are capable of under extreme circumstances. I like to linger on physical descriptions, and exploit those tiny essential details that make a character human."  This approach has informed and inspired her first novel, Little Deaths , a heady blend of sex, murder, bourbon, noir and a femme fatale. Set in 1960s suburban New York, it tells a true story with a modern feminist slant. LITTLE DEATHS I’m on my third or fourth draft of Little Deaths depending on what you call a full draft.  Here’s hoping it will be ready to go to a publisher in early September.  The last draft needed a lot of structural changes and I had to thrash out one of the narrators.  M...

In my pre-birthday posts I go to great lengths to point out all the things I want and like most. This is my bid to ensure I get the kind of presents I can truly treasure. And let me tell you – it works a treat. To date I have a very large tub of Nutella to get through several wonderfully vibrant marking pens already in use – see my facebook page for evidence 2 packets of Fairtrade coffee in the freezer But as yet I've failed to mention what I'm really not so keen on. So, in a bid to redress the balance, I'm going to let you in on the little things which make me squirm; some, which I have no rational explanation for whatsoever. I'm not big on cut flowers. Those cut stems make me consider the rapid decline I'm soon to see in these colourful gifts. They make me feel sad rather than brighten my day as intended by the giver. I would prefer these lovely blooms stayed firmly attached to the plant they grew on. I understand t...