Suspension and Falling in Literature and Life

Latest stop on the virtual tour for Too Many Magpies is at the blog of Words from a Glass Bubble author, Vanessa Gebbie, who uses the fact that I recently had a bad fall down a flight of stairs as a thematic springboard for a pretty wide-ranging discussion about not only Magpies but my writing in general.

Guardian First Book Award Ruling

The Bookseller picks up on the dismay of small literary publishers at the introduction of an entry fee for the Guardian First Book Award. Katie Allen reports:

A number of smaller presses The Bookseller spoke to said they would not be entering. Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley, who scored a shortlisting for Matthew Hollis' Ground Water in 2004, said he could not afford to: ”All the smaller publishers are really concerned." He added: "It really affects poetry . . . For fiction [an entry fee] may be part of the promotional budget but not poetry."

Salt publishing director Jen Hamilton Emery said: ”I can understand why they have done it, but it's a lot of money. It's putting off a lot of people [from entering]. . . We always put in three entries. . . we may only put in one.” She added: ”It will exclude a lot of authors not published by big publishing houses."

Voice in Fiction

On the latest of my virtual tour stops, at poet Barbara Smith's blog, I talk about the importance of voice in fiction, and the way that, as far as I am concerned, getting the right voice dispenses with any need to 'develop' or 'profile' characters.

Writing methods

For anyone interested in writing methods - and mine in particular - I'm interviewed on the subject today on the blog of writer Tom Vowler, as part of Flying with Magpies, the virtual tour I'm conducting for my novel Too Many Magpies.