• Reading lessons from a 2 year old

  When I first found out that my sister was pregnant, I knew there were countless pleasures in store. Hot, squirmy cuddles. The DUPLO farm. …

• Flush Fiction

  The coming of age novel is one of our most popular and powerful literary genres. From The History of Tom Jones to Twilight, The Catcher in the …

• 3 ways to celebrate the future of books

  Do you love to talk about publishing innovation but realise that you behaviour as a reader has barely changed? Are you truly creating, or …

• My life in twelve books

  Last week, a colleague of mine asked if I would participate in a Pinterview (a Pinterest interview. Don’t judge.) called ‘My …

• Close Encounters of the Word Kind

  This Christmas, I bought my mother-in-law a Smythson ‘Book Notes’ journal: 128 leaves of gilt-edged, pale blue featherweight paper bound …

• Forget Little Women; embrace real heroines

  Did you know that Stella Gibbons, author of Cold Comfort Farm - not to mention twenty-four other novels, three volumes of short stories, …

• Explore new horizons at the South Asian Literature Festival

  When you sit down for a bedtime recitation Grimm’s Fairy Tales, do you realize that many of those weird and wonderful folk tales have their origins …

• James Bond: Trash or Art?

  Indulge me in a little exercise. Open a new tab on your browser, enter Amazon.co.uk and type ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ into the search …

• Writers’ rooms

  Why do I have such an enduring fascination with seeing the places that writers write? Forget overblown S&M; Fifty Shades …

• Why happy amateurs win

  “I got up at 7.30 and wrote for an hour before I got on my train. I wrote on the train for two and a …

• The luxury of a one-gulp read

  Last Friday, I spent eight hours reading The Great Gatsby – in Soho, in the dark, along with six hundred or so other skiving bibliophiles. This extraordinary …

• Is gender dividing the digital publishing industry?

  Last Friday morning, an eager audience of aspiring authors, editors, agents and publishers sat gripping cups of strong coffee and gazing upon a veritable smorgasbord …