My debut novel is now out in the world… available in hardback, as an eBook and as an audiobook. For links to online retailers, click here, or The LRB Bookshop and Waterstones in Sheffield have some signed copies!
Continue reading “What Time is Love is published!”Author: holly
Review: Reward System, Gem Calder
These six short stories are almost a novel, interlinked by characters who drift and reconnect with one another in the way friends do, living a big-city, post-university life. And this is Calder’s canvas: young adulthood, and a generation simultaneously bound to one another via social media and yet lost in a disconnected modern world.
Continue reading “Review: Reward System, Gem Calder”Inês De Castro: The macabre tale of the ‘skeleton queen’
It’s a tale as old as time – two lovers unjustly torn apart. But while the story of King Pedro I and his queen Inês De Castro has shades of Romeo and Juliet in its set up, it ends up somewhere altogether more macabre – imagine if Shakespeare’s tale swerved into horror movie territory in the final act.
Continue reading “Inês De Castro: The macabre tale of the ‘skeleton queen’”How to research a novel
‘Write what you know’ is classic advice – for good reason. We all want our work to have a tang of authenticity, and staying within familiar territory can make things more truthful, and certainly a heck of a lot quicker. And as I wrote in my last blog, no matter how well-intentioned, endless research can easily become a procrastination tool.
Continue reading “How to research a novel”What Time is Love? update…
Publication day approaches… and has been brought forward to 26 May 2022. What Time is Love? is available for pre-order now, from your favourite independent bookstore, or this link takes you to a range of online retailers. Final copies are imminent, but we have a cover design!
Continue reading “What Time is Love? update…”How to finish a novel
This first post in a series of blogs about writing was going to be on how to start a novel. But I feel like starting is rarely the problem – whereas finishing often is. Whether you plan a book out or plunge right in, the beginning is always full of shimmery possibility. And then… the reality of the words on the page often disappoints. Hence the urge to polish and polish, re-writing the first chapter or section over and over.
Continue reading “How to finish a novel”Review: Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Leeds Playhouse
Published in The Independent April 7, 2022
It seems wild that the UK hasn’t been treated to a major, full-scale production of Hedwig and The Angry Inch since its West End iteration closed early in 2000 – especially given the subsequent cult status of the 2001 film version.
Continue reading “Review: Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Leeds Playhouse”How the first ever pop star blazed a trail of innovation
Published in BBC Culture February 24, 2022
Think of an era-defining, wildly popular pop star: are you picturing David Bowie? Prince? Elton John? Maybe Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga or Adele? The solo singer-songwriter, whose persona is as well-known as their music and lyrics, is a cornerstone of popular music.
Continue reading “How the first ever pop star blazed a trail of innovation”The surprising ways that Victorians flirted
Published in BBC Culture January 17, 2022
Look up the term “collage”, and the Tate’s website will inform you that this cut-and-paste method for making new work was “first used as an artists’ technique in the early 20th Century.” Generally, Picasso and Braque get credited with inventing collage, with Picasso’s decision to paste oilcloth into his painting Still Life with Chair Caning in 1912 considered a firing shot for an explosion of avant-garde art.
Continue reading “The surprising ways that Victorians flirted”Why assume it’s a problem if a woman is child-free at thirty? Maybe she prefers it that way
Published in The Observer January 30, 2022
It was news last week that women are having fewer children and at a later age: the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that more than half of women in England and Wales don’t have children by the time they are 30. But it hardly felt surprising to me.
Continue reading “Why assume it’s a problem if a woman is child-free at thirty? Maybe she prefers it that way”