It’s ten weeks until my novel Perfect Ten is released so I wanted to talk about how I came to write it and why I chose revenge as the theme. When I tell people that the theme of the novel is revenge there are raised eyebrows and curiosity as to what Caroline, the main character […]
While I’m sitting here in my privileged, white, affluent life checking my step count and reminiscing about the concert I attended last night, it’s hard to believe that in the USA children are being separated from their parents and kept in camps and cages. I am a psychologist and writer, but I want to put […]
I went to see the Rolling Stones last week at Old Trafford Football Stadium. I have been a huge fan of them since childhood when my father gave me a record player and some old records. Amongst them was Little Red Rooster and my introduction to blues and rock. It s no secret that I […]
It’s here! The cover for Perfect Ten is released this week. I am thrilled because it captures Caroline Atkinson’s anger perfectly. My publishers and the cover designer have done a fantastic job, and the tagline, RAGE BEFORE BEAUTY, gives readers a strong clue of what is to come! Thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered […]
Last week I was lucky enough to visit the Tate Modern in London to see the Pablo Picasso exhibition ‘1932 – LOVE, FAME, TRAGEDY’ I knew a little about Picasso’s life but this visit was a real education about who he was, not least how he divided his time between his wife Olga and his […]
On this day, when Manchester wraps its arms around those who need it, I’m sharing a story I wrote last year for Womens Words MCR about my relationship with the city. ‘Let me tell you about love. I lived in Oldham as a teenager, before I knew love properly, but regularly travelled to the city […]
There are a lot of questions lately about where all the working class writers are; I am here. I was born in a deprived area to parents who worked in factory and trade jobs and who had not attended university. They lived with relatives in the 1960s and saved for a house deposit. When I […]
Life is stressful for lots of people at the moment. The endless gloomy weather we have had in the UK has underpinned a general feeling of dissatisfaction, if the news headlines and social networking sites are anything to go by. In my own life, I am emerging from a bittersweet year when I got my […]
As the date for the release of Perfect Ten comes ever closer – still 25 weeks to go but I am so excited that it may as well be tomorrow – I wanted to write about an important aspect of Caroline, the central character’s, life, how it affects many women’s lives including my own, and how […]
To celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th, from today until the end of March I’ll be writing articles about ‘flawed’ women in fiction. As a psychologist and as a woman, I have never warmed to passive women in fiction. I see them as a foil to the ‘bad man’ and isn’t that too easy? […]