Current Plans and News
New look for next year's paperback (A Mother's Guide to Cheating):
I'm now on Twitter - Twitter name: Volewriter. Here's my Twitter homepage.
... and an article about my amazing grandad here
My new novel, 'A Mother’s Guide to Cheating', came out on Feb 18th.
Find out more through Simon and Schuster’s Author Portal link
'The Daughter Game' was out in paperback Feb 19th
The Academic Bad Mother's Handbook
I was delighted to hear that 'The Bad Mother’s Handbook' is referenced in this academic text, 'Family History in Lancashire: Issues and Approaches', edited by Andrew Gritt.
I met one of the authors, Stephen Caunce, when I went to speak to a group at Preston University a few years ago and he asked me then whether he could include TBMH in his chapter ‘Autobiography and Fiction as Sources for Family and Community History’.
His interest is in the way fiction can capture the domestic culture of a region or social class, and how we can use fiction to chart the changes between one period and the next.
He compares the TBMH with other fiction by Lancashire writers, but distinguishes it from earlier novels in that it portrays a more fragmented family unit, comprising individuals affected by (amongst other things) vastly increased aspirations and mass media influences.
The section concludes:
"[The Bad Mother’s Handbook] will be most useful to future historians researching the dynamic and evolving sense of conflict and change that characterizes our period. No longer do successive generations readily perceive a common purpose, or unthinkingly pursue common strategies within families."
You can learn more about the book here
Interview on 'Midlands Today'
My latest blog entry
Read an interview with me here:
The Independent
You can read a typical sort of day in the life of this novelist here.
For a peep at how filming went, have a look at some pictures from the set.
The trailer for the DVD
All my books are now available on audio cassette at your local library. The Bad Mother's Handbook is also available as a CD.
Diary
Meanwhile, these are the events at which I’m appearing in 2010:
- Saturday 27th February, 11.00am, book signing at Bookshrop, Whitchurch, Shropshire
- Thursday 25th March, Hurst Library, Ashton-under-Lyne
- Saturday 27th March, 11.00am-12.00pm, Meet the Author at Nantwich Bookshop
- Saturday 8th May, signing books at Waterstones in Shrewsbury, midday-2pm
- Thursday 10th June, 7.30pm, Bridgnorth Library
- Thursday 17th June Burway Books, Church Stretton, 'Girls Night In with Kate Long' - chocolate and Pimms from 6pm!
- 16 - 21 August, 2010, Teaching an Arvon course at The John Osborne Centre
- Thursday 2nd September 7.30 Bridgnorth Music and Arts Festival
- 6th September, 8.00 pm, Bayston Hill Reading Group
... and where I'll be in 2011
- 26th September - 1st October 2011, Teaching at Lumb Bank Arvon Centre, 'Starting to Write'
... and here's where I was in 2009:
- Thursday 19th Feb, 7-9pm, Bilston, Wolverhampton, speaking to the 'Women Who Write' group
- February 22nd, Wythenshawe Forum reading group
- Thursday May 7th, Workshop at Oswestry School
- Thursday 11th June, 7pm, Westminster Theatre: presenting the prizes for Keele University Short Story competition
- June 22nd, Humber Mouth Literature Festival
- September 12th, Tarporley Book festival
- October 7th, Wordpool (Blackpool Book Festival)
- Saturday 10th October, pm: fiction writing workshop at Birmingham Book Festival
... and in 2008:
- March 6th, Cleckheaton Library, 7.30pm
- March 15th, signing The Daughter Game at Bookshrop (www.bookshrop.com), Whitchurch - 11.00 am
- May 14th, Tipton Library, Dudley
- May 22nd, Ashmore Park Library, Wolverhampton, 7.00pm
- June 9th, Hale Library for WordFest
- June 23rd - 28th: teaching at Arvon
- July 1st, Filey Festival, 2.00pm
- July 8th, Bookseller for the day at Burway Books, Church Stretton
- July 16th, Working with the Wolverhampton LGBT reading group to create a short story
- September 9th, St Alban’s Book Group
- September 24th, Ellesmere W.I.
- September 29th, Bridgnorth Reading Group
- October 2nd, 6.30pm, Birmingham Conservatoire: reading of my story 'The Invisible Woman Goes Shopping', commissioned by Wolverhampton LBGT group
- October 5th, Chester Literature festival
