Category: Book related extras
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Jerome K Jerome one of many authors with a passion for cycling
On a walk through Ewelme last weekend I passed the grave of Jerome K Jerome. Jerome is best known for Three men in a boat which has never been out of print since publication in 1889. He also wrote Three men on the bummel, which follows the same three characters from the boat book as…
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Using music to imagine my way into a scene
Music has always played an important part in my writing process. It keeps me company during the long hours of staring at a blank screen. And it helps me block out the external world when the words finally begin to flow. I often use it to imagine my way into a particular scene. And it’s…
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Why Hemingway decided you should never go on trips with anyone you do not love.
Journeys don’t always work out the way we think they will. When F. Scott Fitzgerald invited Ernest Hemingway on a short trip from Paris to Lyon, Hemingway jumped at the chance. Fitzgerald was the more established novelist at the time and Hemingway saw it as a chance for two writers to spend some agreeable time…
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How the architecture of Queenslander houses influenced the plot of Crossing Live.
Some of the key scenes in Crossing Live take place in or around the home of Roland Kendall. His house isn’t described in detail in the book – I wanted to leave it as much as possible to the reader’s imagination. But a reader who isn’t familiar with Queenslander houses recently asked me about the…
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Touching the sea again at Honfleur
Three months into her tandem journey around France, Catherine Pringle reaches the English Channel when she arrives at Honfleur in Normandy. It’s late summer now and the weather is turning colder. She is tempted to mark the return to the coast with a symbolic dip in the Seine Estuary. But, as ever with Catherine, food…