Writing a novel is one part of the process of being published. Marketing is something else. Something I didn't consider when I started out. Rowan in Batsford Arboretum knows how to adapt If I had been going to open a coffee shop, I would have invested in a...

I am reading Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer about how the native North Americans lived in harmony with plants and animals in their environment. She begins with a creation story told by indigenous people. Skywoman fell 'like a maple seed, pirouetting on an...

Car after car, vans, lorries, double decker buses and a cyclist in red shorts pause five flights below our hotel window. Across the four lanes of traffic, another hotel; its lift slips up and down, down and back up. People drag luggage across the road, pass the...

When I first started writing, I had no idea: about what I would write- novel, poetry, memoir- or how my life would change. For over 20 years I had been a probation officer, my day varied but dominated by deadlines. As an unpublished writer,  there were no prescribed...

When I was a little girl living on the edge of a small town, I used to climb the trees behind our houses. Until I read books by Robert MacFarlane, I thought it was an activity confined to childhood but no it is (or was?) something he enjoyed into his 40s. Trees were...

Several years ago I had a car accident. Until that point I had enjoyed driving because it gave me the sense of freedom and independence I now get from cycling. Prior to the accident, I drove a white Lambretta scooter which I loved despite falling off in the Pennine...