I’m very pleased to have a story in the special Valentine’s issue of Ireland’s Own. The issue also includes a story by Maeve Binchey and another by my writing friend S. Bee, so I’m in really good company!
My story, Thirty Years On, is about a couple celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary with a trip to the same seaside resort, Harrington-on-Sea, where they had their honeymoon. They eat quite a lot of cake, so
I have a 100 word story called ‘Deathbed’ in this competition. I hope you enjoy it and that if you do, you’ll email in a vote for STORY #5.
I have another short story collection out. Lots Of Love contains 25 short stories. It’s £1.99 ($2.99) for the ebook, and £6.60 for the paperback.
Sapphire thinks she needs to be perfect in order to win John’s affections. Will making a perfect mess of things help or hinder her chances? Fennel’s dad expects perfection from a man before he’ll consider him halfway good enough for his daughter, whereas Elizabeth’s mother
2019 has got off to a good start. I currently have a story in Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special (it’s the February issue and apparently was out before New Year!).
Next week on 20th January
Whether you celebrated Christmas, something else, or just carried on as normal, I hope you’ve had an enjoyable time over the last few days,
Personally I’ve been eating and drinking plenty, spending some time with friends and family and being jolly lazy. With that in mind
I very rarely write poetry and when I do it tends to be a bit unusual. There were my wedding vows (which oblige me to
Are We Nearly Famous?
is a free book which myself and three writing friends have put together.
This is our press release –
The book Are We Nearly Famous? has come about as a result of four writing friends looking for a way to promote each other’s work. Patsy Collins, Sheila Crosby and Rosemary Kind originally met through an online writing forum while Lynne Pardoe joined the group later.
Together with fifth group member, Susan Jones, they give honest feedback on each other’s writing projects and help to make sure that the work their readers see is the best it can be. “We all have published books,” says Patsy Collins, “and were looking at ways to help each other promote our writing. Offering a free book with stories written by each of us seemed an obvious route to take.”
The book contains both short stories and opening chapters from some of their novels. The writers hope that if readers enjoy this they may go on to try other of their available books. “Although some of our work is in different genres,” says Sheila Crosby, “we all write some women’s fiction and it was that which drew us together initially.” Between them they also write everything from science fiction to crime, and historical fiction to humour. All four also write non-fiction, drawing on their individual areas of expertise.
“The great thing about working online,” says Rosemary Kind, “is that it doesn’t matter where we are. Sheila lives in the Canary Islands, while Patsy and I both do a lot of travelling. As long as we have an internet connection we can still work together.”
Between them the four have more than thirty published books to their names – and they’re all working on more. Their stories and articles have been published in a wide range of magazines both in the UK and abroad. The book title Are We Nearly Famous? is a tongue in cheek question by the authors. “We’re not household names yet,” says Lynne Pardoe, “but we’re certainly working on it.”
Are We Nearly Famous? is published by Alfie Dog Fiction and is free to download from most leading online stores.
Oh, OK I confess the post title owes more to my liking for alliteration than it does to any ongoing struggle to get published by a magazine in Finland. Actually, I’ve made absolutely no effort to do that – and yet have still achieved it!
My story got an honourable mention in the On The Premises mini ‘Lost and Found’ competition. You can read it, and the winners, here.
The piece is based
My story Lost Sparkle is in the current issue of Woman’s Weekly. It’s set in a doctor’s surgery, which is where I got the idea for it. Everyone there looked quite healthy, including myself I hope as