I recently had an enquiry from an author who has written a fantasy novel, and was looking for fantasy cover illustration ideas. Epic fantasy is one of those genres where the audience has rather specific expectations of the kind of cover the book will have, so you either need to…
With a number of life challenges demanding my time over recent months, I have singularly failed to make sufficient progress on the first draft of Wargaming Campaigns, the book I have been promising to Pen & Sword for the last… ooh… four years! (A repeat performance, indeed, of my first…
Jessica Bell is an award-winning author and writing and publishing coach. Having admired her incredibly diverse achievements from afar, I was delighted to finally meet Jessica at London Book Fair earlier this year. In addition to her novels and poetry collections, and her bestselling Writing in a Nutshell series, Jessica Bell has…
As promised, this is the follow-up to the previous gallery post about Damien Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable. This post features images from the second part, which is being held in the Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal. I want to acknowledge the lovely Joanna Penn who first…
A departure for me: a photo gallery based on an art exhibition. But what an exhibition! I confess I have never been a fan of Damien Hirst, but his monumental – and I mean that most sincerely – Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable is a truly breathtaking outing…
Jane Dixon-Smith, known as JD Smith in the writing world, inhabits a space that almost exactly mirrors my own. By day, she’s a highly successful graphic designer, specialising in book jacket design. But in her spare time, JD Smith puts her fingers on the keyboard and taps out splendid novels.…
Many thanks to fellow south coast author Clare Flynn for agreeing to participate in my Author Insights series. I first met Clare online via the Alliance of Independent Authors (see link top right above) and subsequently discovered she now lives not far away in lovely Eastbourne, a place I know…
I’m delighted to welcome Pippa DaCosta to my online home. I first met Pippa at the London Book Fair earlier this year, where I was struck by her huge energy, enthusiasm, intelligence and good humour—she may not be very tall, but she is a towering talent, as her USA Today successes…
The next willing victim of the series is crime writer Keith Dixon. Keith has worked as a proofreader, a copywriter, an editor and a creator of online content for training organizations. For a while he worked as an organizational psychologist, running training courses for a variety of well-known companies. A Yorkshireman by birth, Keith Dixon then lived in…
This week, I welcome JJ Marsh to my little corner of the web. JJ Marsh is a founder member of Triskele Books, European correspondent for Words with JAM magazine, co-edits Swiss literary hub The Woolf and is a reviewer for Bookmuse. Jill grew up in Wales, Africa and the Middle East, where her curiosity for…