Everything is copy – review of Nora Ephron Collected
I don’t know about you but I am a sucker for Nora Ephron’s screenplay for When Harry Met Sally. The movie’s pretty good too, but the script is outstanding. On the other hand, I’d never…
Jeremy Clarkson has the virus
I can finally reveal Jeremy Clarkson has contracted the virus CO2-19. He had it before and it was thought that he’d recovered, but last week it became obvious that he had succumbed to a second…
Today’s posting is gluten-free
Just the other day a truck drove past me advertising potato crisps – gluten-free. Very commendable. There was only one problem. In my universe potatoes are automatically gluten-free. That’s how they grow. There was only…
A senior cabinet politician writes…
With elections that nobody wants coming up fast everywhere, people have been asking me what to do about the decline of democracy. I reply, you’re doing more than enough already. We in the governments of…
Does satire work?
I’m just finishing a book about satire. Satire is flourishing. We satirists like to think that we change things – ideally for the better. But for all the fuss, does satire work? Can 3,000 years…
Behind the Headlines: From Britain to Hollywood (and back)
All my life I’ve been telling stories. At first, I made up stories to get out of boring homework, or playing sports at school… and almost got myself expelled. Then, I found that in fiction…
Impress your friends – Your biggest eReader problem solved at last
The Harris Institute for Social and Self-Improvement For Individuals and Teams (HISSIFIT) has been working overtime on solving one of the major techno-problems of our age. You buy your highly specified Kindle, Nook or other…
How to create a character that lives
This week I talked to Bonnie D Graham on her radio programme Read My Lips. (You can listen to the recording here) As often happens, she wanted to know how I create the characters for…
Your social media problems solved
Having a problem keeping up with your social media demands? No time to tweet? Embarrassed at sending out-of-fashion-emojis or misunderstanding the meaning of LOL? My personal development lab – The Harris Institute for Social and…
Finnish humour. Review of Palm Beach Finland by Antti Tuomainen
Last year, I sat with the Finnish novelist Antti Tuomainen on a panel for the literary festival Newcastle Noir. Tuomainen is a massive name in his home country and is enormously funny to listen to,…
The roller-coaster ride of publishing a novel
It’s not often that a writer gets to blow his own trumpet, but it’s the second anniversary of the publication of The Breaking of Liam Glass and much to celebrate and be grateful for. My…
Ukraine elected a comedian president – so what do politicians think of voters?
Last Sunday, the voters of Ukraine elected a comedian president. Volodymyr Zelenskiy won the election despite having zero experience of politics, aside from taking the role of president in a TV series. We voters are…
Into The Mirror and beyond
Like all writers, I get invited to festivals, book clubs and bookshops to talk about the stories I’ve written, stories that have taken me to Hollywood and back. It was one such story that unexpectedly…
They warned us! Review: Middle England by Jonathan Coe
They warned us. We were making a film for the British car makers British Leyland in their Midlands Longbridge factory. But the camera crew was using an estate car made by another company. A “foreign”…
Liam Glass gets a BookBub recommendation
This week I have exciting news: my novel has landed a prestigiousBOOKBUB RECOMMENDATION. They’re putting my debut noir thriller The Breaking of Liam Glass out to their massive mailing list for 99p/99c – for only a…
Living on the edge
It was one of these special places on the edge of things. Where you place a novel or screenplay is one of the most important decisions a writer makes. As I started planning the novel…
Chill out with Chili – Review: Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
We all love a good little-fish-in-a-big-pond story, when the little guy from out of town has to survive among the city-slickers. But we love it even more when the little guy turns out to be…
The murder to end all literary murders? Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz reviewed
The English love the countryside and never more than when there’s a corpse spreadeagled over the lawn. The country crime sub-genre appeared almost as soon as the detective genre itself. Three years after the first English…
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