Swanwick Writing School

I was really surprised to discover Swanwick Writers' Summer School recently.  Not only is it a mere 30 miles from my hometown of Buxton,but it's also where most of my family live. Why didn't I know about this before?!

The Writing School takes place between 13th and 19th August.  The programme of events is amazing - extremely varied with some great workshops and speakers.  This year's rundown includes a Science Fiction for Beginners course led by Iain Banks, a Writing Horror Workshop by agent, John Jarrold, a talk by MBA agent, Meg Davis and a Writing for Children Course by SCBWI's, Benjamin Scott.  And that's only a small selection. 

With so much to choose from, I can see why people choose the residential option and decide to stay at the conference centre, but it's also possible to book as a day visitor.  Booking information can be found here.  In addition to this, Swanwick also run a couple of writing competitions (short story and writing for children) - first prize for both is a free week at the school.

Review: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

I've wanted to read Paranormalcy for a long time. Firstly, I'm a big fan of Kiersten White's hilarious blog and secondly, who could resist a book with such an amazing cover? 

Luckily the book pretty much lived up to my expectations, although I'm afraid that my inner interpretation of the main character, Evie,  didn't match the girl on the book at all!  In fact, the whole image suits a much moodier book.  Paranormalcy has it's dark moments, but in general, it felt fairly light-hearted and that's a hard balance to maintain. It'll be fascinating to find out how the author balances comedy with sinister in the follow up, Supernaturally.  You can read the full review on Chicklish.

Reading Round Up (February 2011)

I've just started to make my way through the lovely pile of books on my coffee table.   Virtually all of these are due for review so I'll be posting my thoughts over the next few weeks:

Paranormalcy - Kiersten White
The Pain Merchants - Janice Hardy
Siren - Tricia Rayburn
The Winter Ghosts - Kate Mosse
The Iron King - Julie Kagawa
The Hare with Amber Eyes - Edmund de Waal

Also, although this isn't one of my 'official' review books, I HAVE to recommend Firebrand by Gillian Philip. I'd heard this novel was good, but it totally blew me away and I'm not massively into the faerie/sithe thing. Philip gets everything right - the characters, the plotting, the mythology. She's taken old ideas and made them new again. I understand why the first print run ran out so quickly.  If I have a chance, I'll post a more detailed review here at some point.

World Book Night

It's taken a while to make it to the blog, but I'm proud to post that I've been accepted as a giver for World Book Night, which is due to take place 5 March 2011.  It took me ages to choose the book that I wanted to give - the list includes many of my favourites including Northern Lights, the Blind Assassin, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Life of Pi, but in the end, I decided to select Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

This is one of my all time favourites because of the narrative structure. I'm a sucker for interlocking stories, especially amazingly-written ones that contain more than one genre. I know this isn't necessarily the most accessible novel in the world, but I hope that some of the 48 readers receiving a free copy will enjoy reading the book.  All being well, I'll be posting a couple of comments here after the event.