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Five stars for Robin Hood

22 Apr

Robin Hood cover Readers Favourite badgeI just got another lovely review for Why Everything You Know about Robin Hood Is Wrong, this time from Reader’s Favorite. As it was a five-star review, I now have the right to put their lovely badge on my book, if I like (as in the picture above) or buy some sheets of sticky badges for oodles of money. I think I’ll make do with the digital kind.

The woman who did the review gave me too much credit for original research, when WEYKARHIW was really just a synthesis of existing research. But a five-star review is a five-star review and I’ll take it, thank you very much.

If you want to read it, it is here: Reader’s Favorite review. Otherwise, you can just coo in admiration over the rather snazzy metallic-effect badge superimposed above.

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Robin Hood Review

27 Mar

Just a quickie to say that there’s a new review of Why Everything You Know about Robin Hood is Wrong from Reader Views. The nice girl who reviewed it, Rachel Dehning,  describes the book as being “akin to a humorous research project” which seems entirely fair. Sometimes it seems my whole life is akin to a humorous research project…

Anyway, I’ll let you read it in its entirety if you like:

WEYKARHIW review on Reader Views

And hopefully in the not-too-distant future I’ll be posting about my experience of self-isolation. Just like every other blogger in the world.

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My Year in Review – 2019

31 Dec

It is the final day of the year (and indeed the decade) so I thought I would do a quick and thoroughly arbitrary review of my 2019.

It’s been a pretty good year for me, certainly better than last year, so here’s hoping that pattern continues into the ’20s.

Continue reading →

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What I learned at DyslexiFest

12 Oct

This was supposed supposed to be a proper reblog, where the original post appears below, and you can read the first part of it right here, but I’m currently away from my laptop and it turns out not to be so easy on a phone. I’m doing my best, OK?

Anyway, the point of this pseudo-reblog is that I’ve just written a wee piece for Dyslexia Scotland’s blog, A Life Less Ordinary, about four things I learnt at DyslexiFest.

DyslexiFest (which I find ironically hard to spell) was a “celebration of all things dyslexic” that was held in Glasgow last weekend. Don’t think there’s anything to celebrate about dyslexia? Read my previous posts on the subject (here and here) or just have a read of the Dyslexia Scotland blog.

Anyway, you can read about it the event here: #DyslexiFest

Meanwhile, I will think fondly of my laptop sitting obediently on my desk. But with a smartphone (and, importantly, a charger) in my bag, I’m sure I will find plenty of ways to amuse myself while pretending I’m working.

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I like pretty women, I like good wine

3 Sep

And extra marks to the person who gets that obscure song reference.*

The title alludes to the fact that my piece on Albanian wine has been published in Wine Tourist Magazine, so you can make yourself very jealous reading about what I did with my summer / educate yourself about Albanian wine varieties and history (delete as appropriate).

Continue reading →

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How to (try to) get published

15 Aug

I’ve got a book coming out at the end of this month that I had been meaning to write and release for ages, but I got a little push a few months back when a friend from church asked me how she would go about getting her almost-finished novel published.

Continue reading →

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Fulvia and Florence, a Formidable Pair

8 Apr

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you’ll know that when I announce that I’ve got an article in a magazine, I usually provide a tasteful, cropped photo of the article – an image that shows enough to help you find it in the magazine and hopefully want to read more, but not enough to upset the people at the magazine who deal with copyright and fair usage.

This time is a bit unusual because, although I currently have an article in two magazines, I don’t have a copy of either of them. I moved home almost a year ago, but while I thought I had updated my address with all my contacts while I was still having my post forwarded, in fact I obviously didn’t, and the magazines are probably confusing the person at my old house, or sitting in a forlorn corner of a sorting office. It makes me wonder what else I may be missing…😕 Continue reading →

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Limbo

18 Mar

I seem to be in a strange kind of limbo, writing-wise at the moment. I’ve finished my latest novel, The Sarcophagus Scroll, and I’ve given it to my editor and a couple of beta readers (at their request), but as my editor has just given birth and beta readers (in my experience) rarely do much reading, there’s no news. It almost feels as if I never finished it and it simply doesn’t exist. Continue reading →

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Beautiful Bute

7 Feb

I’m just back from what my sister called my “overseas tour” – speaking to a literary society on the Isle of Bute. Continue reading →

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Robin Hood on Tour

2 Feb

Next week I’ll be travelling to Robin Hood’s heartland which is, of course, Yorkshire!

On this mini-book tour I’ll be speaking to the sixth formers at my old school, Sheffield High, but I’ll also be doing a public event at Stannington Library. Stannington is a suburb of Sheffield that is still almost like a village, and is conveniently close to Loxley, of Robin Hood fame.

It’s on Tuesday 12th of February at 7pm, and it takes the form a discussion between myself and a storyteller called Carmel Page, who has written fictional stories about the young Robin Hood.

Entry is free, but as it’s a volunteer library, donations are encouraged. I will also have copies of my book Why Everything You Know about Robin Hood Is Wrong available for sale.

There’s a PDF of the event poster here, which you may share as widely as you like, and there’s this adorable wee gif that Stannington Library created for me. (If it doesn’t play automatically, try clicking on it.)

two_heads

By the way, if you have an idea of an author event for me, or would like to invite me to speak to your school or organisation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch using the “Get in Touch” section (obviously). ➡️

 

 

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