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The folk horror novelist still finds this writing business “excruciating”…

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt was my recent holiday read, and I loved it. It tells the story of lonely widow Tova, whose teenage son vanished 30 years ago. She works at a small aquari

L If they’re ever looking to recruit spies, forget handsome, fit, blue-eyed Bonds. Forget gym-buffed Daniel, impossibly good-looking Tom and danger magnet Matt. Look instead for a middle-aged woman in

Thanks for coming in today, Bea,” said Jason, the commissioning editor at Bluestone Press, where Bea was interviewing for yet another assistant job. “We’ll be in touch.” “Okay, great,” replied Bea, fo

We tend to imagine our literary icons in ivory towers – poised, thoughtful, wrapped in something muted and cashmere, tapping away at sleek laptops. Perhaps it’s how you picture yourself when attemptin

Novels, for me, have come from somewhere I wasn’t looking. In my twenties I was carrying an idea about a woman wandering around Ireland on a quest she didn’t understand and I sat in the Reading Room o