Book reviews, new books, publishing news, book giveaways, and author interviews

Why todays underrated books are tomorrows cult classics

Why today's underrated books are tomorrow's cult classics

If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader. Thanks for visiting! The Most Underrated Book Award 2013, which I helped judge, was announced on Friday at the close of the SPN Independent Publishing Conference. The winner was the wonderful'Fish-Hair Woman by Merlinda Bobis (Spinifex...

Guest Post: The Writing Process by SD Thorpe

Guest Post: The Writing Process by SD Thorpe

Todays guest post on the writing process is by'SD Thorpe, whose book'Getting Up is published through Momentum Books. The writing process. It goes like this. You get up early. You make a cup of tea. You sit down in front of the computer. Turn it on. Do NOT check Facebook, Twitter, email, Tumblr, Instagram or Ebay. Remember your dreams'write one down to...

Guest Post: Balancing writing and family by Kate Belle

Guest Post: Balancing writing and family by Kate Belle

Today's guest post, on balancing writing and family, is by Kate Belle   How do you juggle your family with writing? It's a common enough question (although interestingly more often directed at female than male authors). Creativity, like the human beings it's borne in, is complex, flexible and'responsive. For those juggling a family, work,...

Review: Journey from Venice by Ruth Cracknell

Review: Journey from Venice by Ruth Cracknell

  Venice is the only place in Italy Ive been tounless the countryside scudding along outside the train window countsand its a city that straddles so many realities. With a foot on land and one in the ocean, its physically an in-between city; with its car-less streets and ancient architecture, its a place that...

Interview: Sandra Antonelli on advocating for older protagonists in romance fiction

Interview: Sandra Antonelli on advocating for older protagonists in romance fiction

Local romance author Sandra Antonelli and I have been in touch over Twitter and through the site for a while now, but first properly connected over an interview I did late last year with author Maggie Dana about middle-aged protagonists and their representation in fiction. This is, as it turns out, Sandras area of expertise, and is something that she...

Interview: LA Johannesson on writing technological romance

Interview: LA Johannesson on writing 'technological romance'

One of the topics that I find endlessly interesting in fiction is the lengths that many authors will go to in order to avoid dealing with modern technology in their work. A functioning mobile phone, for example, can easily put an end to a disaster or adventure story, so its little wonder that characters either lose them, forget to charge them, or break...