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Judge’s comments on The Bog Mermaid
Here are the delightful comments from Elizabeth Bradfield, the judge of the Quill Prose Award (the one Mermaid just won!) What does a bog contain? Water, layer upon layer of sphagnum, darkness, cold; things preserved in that airless chill beyond what light and air would allow. So the past burbles into the present, and currents…
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The Bog Mermaid wins Quill Prose Prize
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Remembering Lilian Mohin
I’ve just read in yesterday’s Guardian Other Lives, that Lilian Mohin has died, age 81, although the online version is dated March, so lockdown and Covid-enlarged deathrate must have pushed her off the paper version initially. I don’t think she’d be pleased. We argued, the first time Lilian and I met, and for a while…
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Refugees Welcome Anthology
I’m delighted that I have TWO stories in the forthcoming Refugees Welcome anthology. These are We Apologise for the Delay… a story of what it means to be a stranger and how communities form in times of need, told through the prism of the London Underground as the site for ‘first contact’ with aliens; and…
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Why Short Stories?
There’s been a lot of chat going on recently about short stories, including on the radio, this week’s Open Book had Aminatta Forna giving a potted history of the short story from Poe, Chekhov and Saki to Helen Simpson, and even Ramblings (a walking programme … fascinating, listen!) had Claire Balding in company with short…
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Fantasy Marketing
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Self-Publishing and e-Books
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Judging a Book By Its Cover
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Interview with Joan Taylor-Rowan author of The Bird Skin Shoes
I’m posting a series of short snatches of interview with Joan Taylor-Rowan, Author of The Birdskin Shoes. In this first section Joan talks about the inspiration for the title, and the connections between her own Irish roots and Joey’s escapades in Mexico, by way of religious imagery… its a far reaching book! listen here! joan…
Cherry Potts, Writer 