Fall & rise

Muriel Spark’s irrepressible creative drive

RIDICULOUS that after all this time it should be a shock. What had she expected? That he would appear one day on her doorstep with that oh-so-familiar crooked grin to reclaim her? To tell her that he’

Rewiting your first draft might seem daunting, but, says James McCreet, it’s where you have the chance to really make your writing shine So you’ve finished the first draft. The story lies ‘finished’ b

A short while after we married, Tom and I made the decision to leave behind our hectic London lives and relocate to the tranquillity of rural living. We wanted a slower pace of life where the countrys

IT was a fine, windy day in September, and Rosalind Aston had an odd feeling that she was in love. The emotion was new, and she could not be sure, but she luxuriated in it as she walked towards the ha

WHAT d’you reckon, sir?” Sergeant Winner sidled up to his long-time inspector with a worried look. His grey eyes swivelled towards a swelling crowd of newspaper men. Under an early-morning sky which t