Time to get cracking!

I have always loved solving cryptic crosswords, and have run several workshops to help others learn how to crack the clues. Now I have written a book on how to do it too! My new ebook HOW TO CRACK CRYPTIC CROSSWORDS, published by How To Books,is now available on Amazon Kindle and will shortly be on Kobo too. It's only £1.53, and tells you all you need to know to be able to recognise the many clue types, deconstruct and ultimately solve them! It's a great hobby, and does wonders for improving your concentration, memory and general brainpower. I have also included a handy list of the cryptics that appear in the daily and Sunday national papers with details of prizes and a star rating to indicate just how hard (or easy!) they all are. Here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crack-Cryptic-Crosswords-Short--ebook/dp/B00934K74I/ref=sr_1_10?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1346231016&sr=1-10#_

It's freebie time !!

Now my novel 'Losing Lucy' has been on kindle for a while, sales are inevitably flagging, so here's the chance to download it for free - for 5 days only. If you enjoy my magazine stories, or you followed my trials and tribulations during the writing of this book in my Writers Forum magazine column, now's the opportunity to read the finished story at no cost - except maybe to kindly write me a review! There are some very good review there already - and no, I didn't pay the readers to write them. They are genuine! Thank you. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Losing-Lucy-ebook/dp/B006WP6VUU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1337466039&sr=1-1#_

LOSING LUCY IS NOW ON KINDLE!

My novel Losing Lucy is finally available (as an ebook only) via Amazon Kindle. This is the one whose progress readers were able to follow month by month in my Writers Forum column 'Book Deal or Bust' as I wrote and edited it and tried to find it a publisher. It's good to see it out there at last, even if I did have to go it alone in the end.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Losing-Lucy-ebook/dp/B006WP6VUU/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1326406014&sr=1-2#_

In celebration of pets - Furballs, Feathers and Fish

Here is my newest venture - a little self-published book in celebration of pets. Cats, dogs, goldfish, rabbits, birds, tortoises... I love them all! A collection of short stories (some of them previously published in women's magazines) and poems, including a couple of children's stories/poems - and with my beautiful cat Buster on the front cover. It's a handy A5 handbag size and costs just £3 plus £1 postage. Orders taken now. Just email me!

WINNER!

I have just been told I've won the London region prize in a love and marriage poetry competition run my Marriott Hotels, whose venues host lots of weddings. I get a romantic weekend for 2 in one of their hotels and my poem will appear with other prizewinners and shortlisted poems in a little book to be distributed to guests at their hotels nationwide. Whoopee!

The magic of picture books

I have worked as a library outreach specialist with children under 5 for more than 8 years now, introducing the very young to the magic of stories and rhymes, in libraries, nurseries and children's centres... so I was thrilled to be asked to join the book selection panel for Bookstart, the national book gifting scheme. With other professionals who all work in some way with children and books, I sat around a table for 5 hours today looking at and discussing literally hundreds of picture books, old and new, and picking out the very select few that we believe should be given free to the nation's children! A big responsibility, but also a unique and very rewarding experience.
I have been writing a lot about kids' books again lately - in recent issues of Nursery World, Practical Preschool, and EYE. Now the next step for me is to try to get a picture book text of my own accepted by a mainstream publisher, and I have a very short appointment booked with just such a publisher at the London Book Fair in April. I think I know what works when it comes to picture books, and I have written a great little rhythmic, rhyming, read-aloud story, but I am no artist, so I am very reliant on a publisher seeing the potential in my idea and words and being able to imagine the same action-packed and endearing pictures that I see in my head when I read the story, then finding the perfect illustrator to bring it all to life on the page. A big ask, but here's hoping....

Diamonds and Pearls has arrived!

The charity anthology has been launched and is now available in bookshops and on Amazon. A wonderful collection of short stories in the women's mag style, in aid of breast cancer charity www.againstbreastcancer.org.uk
Please buy one!