Writing through the worst of it

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

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

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

‘When did he lose her?’ asks Gina. I inwardly roll my eyes at the expression. Matthew didn’t mislay Becky, like a pair of reading glasses or a wallet. She died. I am not a fan of the euphemisms that p

Alia Waheed explores the grief and survivor’s guilt she’s experienced since her mother passed away at the age of 43

TV presenter Steph McGovern, 43, on motherhood and Middlesbrough