I’m so delighted, my thriller, The Divide, has been shortlisted for a Crime Writers’ Association Short Story Dagger!
You can listen to me reading the opening (if you want!).
This is the second short story I’ve had published and shortlisted! This one is in The Book of Bristol edited by Joe Melia and Heather Marks and is available here.
The winner will be announced on 4 July at the CWA dinner in London at a fancy hotel. I’m not going as a) I’m too shy, b) I’m too poor and c) I’m going to listen to
talking about her new two-book special, A Year of Nothing.
Besides, Lee Child is also on the shortlist. Case made.
This is what I wrote about my short story and the launch in the Bristol Central Library:
Writing
My friend
invited me to write about how writers really make a living for her wonderful and brilliant Substack
And in return Emma’s analysed how to separate and connect Showing and Telling in writing right here at
Listening
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. As Stephen King says, this is dynamite. It’s the story of a young woman, Vanessa Wye, who is 32 and discovers that her old English school teacher, Jacob Strane, is being accused of the rape of a minor.
Vanessa was fifteen when she first had sex with Strane, then aged 42. But for her, it wasn’t abuse, or rape. She is disgusted with the whole MeToo movement, where women are treated as victims. Because for Vanessa, this was love, and her love affair with her teacher has shaped her entire life.
‘To be groomed is to be loved and handled like a precious, delicate thing.’
It is, of course, hard to listen to at times, but deals with horrific issues in a nuanced and sensitive way.
The line that chills me to the bone is when Strane kneels at Vanessa’s feet, just before the first assault, and says, ‘I am going to ruin you.’
Gracie Gummer, the narrator of the audio book, says that the quote which haunts her, is when Vanessa, as an adult, is in therapy, but still denying that her relationship with Strane had been anything other than complicit and consensual.
Her therapist, Ruby, says, ‘You were just trying to go to school.’
The literary thread running through the book is beautiful, the writing is gorgeous, and I could listen to Gracie Gummer who was narrating it for Audible if she were reading my shopping list.
Impossible to put down.
Interviewing
Over at the
, Team RLF have been busy interviewing writers about their writing life. You can read all of them at My Writing Life. I love hearing about people’s routines (so much so that I’ve started doing a round up over at the of some writers’ writing routines (Subscribe to the RLF to get the free article when it’s out).Some favourite authors of mine whom we’ve recently featured are:
Find out why Neil says:
‘you’re going to be icing your hands every night and by week three your hand is going to look like a rubber washing up glove that someone has partially inflated.’
Here’s what Paula says about her writing:
‘In life, I’m a planner - I can’t bear disorder, mess and uncertainty - but in my writing life, I’ve come to realise that meticulous planning is creatively stifling.’
Fun fact about Peter’s writing day:
‘My writing day starts at 6pm in the evening, when I mix a large vodka martini, with four olives, put on some music, such as the Kinks or Van Morrison and get into a zone. I try to ensure that whatever I’m doing, I leave myself time to write 1000 words 6 days a week.’
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