A record of all things bookish and strange…
Rivers of London Award Shortlist Interview: Dan Buchanan
The skeleton of my story … serves as a useful guide, not only in terms of inspiring the questions my world-building needs to answer, but also as a kind of framework on which I can bounce the story around, and chop and change as needed.Dan Buchanan on knowing the story you’re telling Shortly after Gollancz’s…
Rivers of London Award Shortlist Interview: Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson
This is a story we are hesitant to tell…Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson – The Principle of Moments Shortly after Gollancz’s Rivers of London Award, I got in touch with the winners and other shortlistees to find out more about them and thier projects. In this post, Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson talks to me about her winning novel, The Principle…
Rivers of London Award Shortlist Interview: Jaya Martin
Rivers of London award shortlistee, Jaya Martin, talks to me about her novel Blood of the Wolf and her influences as a writer.
Rivers of London Award Shortlist Interview: Victor Ogana
It all started with a broken roof and a bangle made of cowries.Victor Ogana – Seeds of Heaven Check out the other interviews here. Shortly after Gollancz’s Rivers of London Award, I got in touch with the winners and other shortlistees to find out more about them and thier projects. In this post, Victor Ogana…
Boyars, Orphans, and Other Creatures of the Night: Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Deathless Girls
If you’d told me several months ago that within the next few weeks, I’d be completely consumed by a teenage vampire novel, I would’ve laughed. But The Deathless Girls is so much more…
A Spark in the Darkness: Liz Hyder’s Bearmouth
Read my original post on The Book Slut here. “You sed it taykes one person to start a revolushun, but that ent true is it? Taykes more than one. One to start it and uvvers to believe it can happen.”Bearmouth, by Liz Hyder The genderless protagonist of Liz Hyder’s Bearmouth goes by the name Newt.…
Altered Memories and Other Worlds: My Top Five Reads of 2019
Read my original post on The Book Slut here. Let’s be honest, 2019 went way too quickly, and regretfully, I didn’t manage to get as far through my TBR list as I’d hoped. Whereas in 2018, I read a ton of YA fantasy, 2019 saw me branching out more, turning back towards more literary new…
Six Things I Learned from Reading like THREE HUNDRED Stories Written by Six-Year-Olds
As a judge for Wimbledon Bookfest, I read three hundred (and forty two) stories written by children between the ages of six and eleven. This is what I learned.
My Take: “My Brother’s Name is Jessica” by John Boyne
First off, let me put one thing out there before anything else — I went into reading this book with the best intentions and only the fullest sympathy for John Boyne as an author. I knew about the controversy that had erupted on twitter and social media (as it does), and I picked up our shop’s ARC…
The Venture 