I am an international woman of mystery.
Oh alright, I’m not an international woman of mystery at all but I’ve always fancied being one, whatever the job entails. The truth is, I’m a complete blabber mouth in most areas of my life.
Except for one.
I’ve somehow managed to keep the whole writing thing fairly quiet from many people in my personal and professional life. The sharp-eyed may notice that I’m the only person on this blog who doesn’t use their full name. I thought long and hard about this when Samantha was setting it up. My ‘day job’ is as a magazine journalist and it struck me that it might not be a great idea to have all my thoughts and insecurities about the much-more-important-but-thus-far-without-visible-success side of things up here for all to see. Those feature editor types are no strangers to Google when they’re about to commission someone.
Obviously there is a picture with my biography, but it is quite old [and it was taken in the days before the Witness Protection Programme….but that’s another story]

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'You should wear gloves when you hold that', advised R, after I read out a couple of chilly extracts.

Surviving in extreme situations, the nature of marriage, cold-war politics and the psychology of serial killers are just a few of the issues that make this a good reading group choice. It's the quality and intensity of the writing, though, that keeps you reading.


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Over on Radio 3 they're knee-deep in Haydn at the moment, it being his bicentenary and all. In his lifetime he was considered the greatest composer in Europe, the kind of accolade which seems to end in plummeting stock once someone's heirs begin to have their Oedipal way (cf Mendelssohn - another revelation of this year of anniversaries - being murdered by Wagner). But not any longer: Haydn's risen again in critical esteem since the 70s, when I was told that if it sounded like Mozart, but was duller and you didn't recognise it, then it was Haydn. And of course art is art and craft is craft, so there's much for a writer to chew on in what's being said about a composer of consummate craftsmanship, erudition and humour. Ages ago, in Brainy and Sexy, I was brooding on how all fiction balances new-and-strange with familiar, and how seeing it that way abolishes the gap between the Calvinists who preach that only the painfully difficult can defend us from the vulgar pollution of likeability, and the equally tedious Philistines who argue that anything not instantly likeable is so much showing-off and snobbery. So here's the fortepianist Robert Levin, contrasting the high Baroque of Bach (first prelude of the Forty-Eight) with Haydn's classicism:

it's very demanding of the audience because Bach does nothing to help you fit which chords belong to one sentence and which to another. You listen to the succession and decide where to breathe... he's not helping you by making things regular. Whereas a composer like Haydn... maximum clarity... give[s] the listener a sense of where he or she happens to be at that moment... then you can constantly predict what's going to happen... and be astonished, delighted and confounded if once in a while you don't get what you expect. Haydn is the master of masters of feeding you just enough material that you think "- maybe - maybe not - "

In other words, just because we go on and on about what's new ("fresh", as the book trade so often calls it, which always makes me think of lettuce), doesn't mean that new is the only thing which matters in writing.

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I'm not one for re-reading books. As a rule I just don't do it. And I'm not sure I should; there are loads and loads of books I've not read and want to, and so little time.

But recently, this past week, I've re-read a few. I don't know why, it's not been a conscious decision. Maybe it's because I've been feeling out of sorts and a bit sorry for myself; maybe it's because I've been busy with writing jobs that haven't involved any actual writing; maybe it's training for the writing I'm going to be doing; or maybe it's serendipity. Don't know. But the point is, I have. I re-read Kafka's The Metamorphosis, and a load of Aimee Bender and Etgar Keret stories. And it's been a wonderful and warming experience. And not just seeing things with fresh eyes, noticing things that'd slipped by me on first readings. More it's reminded me WHY I loved them the first time round; why I love stories.

So, in the spirit of inclusion and sharing (and hoping for recommendations): what books would you re-read, and why?

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The buzz at the RA Summer Exhibition was more than usually raucous, especially in the crush of the smaller galleries where hundreds of paintings crowd the walls in haphazard layers. In part it's the reaction to a surprisingly upbeat collection.



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I need to find a small independent publisher who would be interested in my mini coffee table style book to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support.
If there are any publishers out there or if anybody can recommend a publisher would be eternally grateful if you could contact me!
Many thanks.

I am hoping to publish a mini coffee table style book to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support with literary and artistic contributions from people who have been touched by cancer in some way. I would like to dedicate the book to the memory of loved ones we have lost and to show our solidarity to people who are living with cancer and in remission.
If you would like to contribute towards this project please contact me for further information.
annie_morgan68@hotmail.com

The team have been eagerly waiting for Susannah Rickards to join the Strictly Writing blog. She is a busy bee but has finally carved out time for us and we look forward to her first post - no pressure there, then, Susannah!


Here's a short word from the woman herself!


"I'm from the North East but now live in Surrey with my twin boys and my husband. I write mainly short stories and have had them, and poetry anthologised, broadcast and won/placed in a few awards...

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Some pictures of red kites...

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Diane Kruger as Lisa resembles a young, low-key Catherine Deneuve , and Vincent Lindon has the kind of baggy-eyed, lived-in look that Frenchmen have perfected.


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