Category: Inspiration

What’s 10 Futures About?

The best way to prepare for the future is to imagine it. In our imaginations we can anticipate where we’re going, where our lives might be, the shape of the world to come. 10 Futures is a very different book for me, a real departure from the wonderful Steampunk...

A New Book: 10 Futures

I can finally divulge details of the top secret project I’ve been working on for some time. 10 Futures is a series of linked stories which explore humanity’s next hundred years. Ten story segments, ten possible futures, each with its own challenges and opportunities – overpopulation, worldwide financial collapse,...

Writers Write: My Favourite Book 8

Penni Russon Today’s Guest Blogger is Penni Russon, one of this country’s most admired writers for young people, with works as varied as the lyrical ‘Undine’ trilogy and Girlfriend Fiction. I have just excised a 300-word introduction listing all the books I won’t be talking about – for to...

Writers Write: My Favourite Book 7

Holly Harper The first time I saw a Goosebumps book, I fell in love. I was eight, and the fact that the title was written in blood-like lettering and contained the words ‘Dead House’ meant that it was instantly the coolest thing I had ever laid eyes on. And...

History is a Fantasy Writer’s Best Friend

I visit many schools and libraries, and speak to a lot of young people about books and reading and writing. One of the (many) things I tell them is that history is a fantasy writer’s best friend. As a fantasy writer, I love what history can offer. As well...

Extraordinary People: Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard

One of the best (and most unexpected things) about being a writer in this interconnected world is that I’m in touch with people who are interested in books, reading and writing, and they live all over the place. When it becomes known that I have various research needs, these...

Talbot Mundy – Adventurous Writer of Adventures

Almost forgotten today, Talbot Mundy was one of the great adventure writers of the first half of the twentieth century. It was fellow bibliophile and curiosity seeker Stephen Bresnehan who put me onto Mundy, sending me a copy of  ‘King – of the Khyber Rifles’, a thrashingly good tale...

Powerless Heroes

I know this article should really be called ‘Powerless Protagonists’ or ‘Powerless Main Characters’ but I couldn’t resist the nuance of ‘Powerless Heroes’. What I’m talking about is the tendency of many stories to have a main character who is helpless. Put upon. A loser. I was reading a...

Writing and Magic

As a fantasy writer, I spend much of my writing time about magic, how it works and its effects on the people and societies in my stories. In ‘The Laws of Magic’ series, for instance, magic is a codified, rational endeavour which is explored and experimented with in the...