Laurie Graham

Time was, you delivered a manuscript to your editor, corrected the galleys, and your work was done. At a later date you might possibly be required to do a 3am telephone interview with Radio Whernside or go and sit behind a pile of your books in a deserted bookshop and smile bravely.  But essentially you were free to go back…

 Stuff lands on my desk. Sometimes I can’t bear even  to look at it. Being ever mindful of how much work it takes to write a book  –  okay, it’s not like ploughing a field but it does require a certain amount of effort and application – I don’t want to be the one to turn…

Late last evening an invitation plinked into my In Box. Well, kind of. The Cultural Institute at the Bulgarian Embassy in London is hosting a forum on Bulgaria and its image in Europe and the gist of the invitation was that they would have loved to ask me to speak but were unable to offer…

   Almost without exception every novel I’ve ever written has caused some reader to get in touch with me and ask me how I know so much about their life. I try to assure them they’re not being stalked by a crazy old scribbler. The fact is, there are only so many stories in the…

Time is a strange thing for a writer. Sometimes it passes at a luxuriously leisurely pace and you can spend a whole morning deciding whether to name a character Desmond or Donald. What do you mean, does it matter? Are you crazy? Then, often without warning, time scrunches up into a log jam of tasks that must be…

    When people find out I’m a novelist they ask, quite reasonably, what kind of books I write. That’s the moment when I long to be able to say ‘Mills & Boon,’ or ‘thrillers’. Then they’ll know exactly what they’re dealing with. As it is, the most helpful thing I can do is to murmur ‘social…

People say, ‘Oh you must be so self-disciplined, working from home and writing books and everything.’ Well yes and, er, no. Yes in the sense that I turn up at my desk six days a week, open the computer file and read balefully through what I wrote yesterday.  But no in the sense that I fight a…

I spent yesterday checking the copyedit of my new novel. A Humble Companion won’t be published till June but that’s the way of publishing these days. You need to get proof copies out to reviewers, movers and shakers ASAP. A good copy editor (and I’ve been lucky enough always to get good ones) can save a writer…

I’ve returned from Panto Week (un succes fou, thank you for asking) intent on spring-cleaning my website. Think of it as the cyber equivalent of hoovering under the bed. To this end, dear faithful reader, there are going to be some changes around here. This blog will continue but from now on will comment solely on…

 One final post before the bags are zipped shut and we head out to Pantoland. The thing is, I just remembered something else to worry about. Closed doors. The Avogaria is a darling little theatre run by people who love what they do. We came upon it in a moment of great need (i.e, having been bumped…