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One Year Later – Press

by admin
July 1, 2021November 24, 2023

previousThe Stolen Child: A dark fairy tale

nextMy Mother’s Secret – Press

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How a divided city led to a story about division –

Wild Writing with Sanjida is out on @substackinc

My exciting news is that I'm launching a newslette

This is my Sanjida O'Connell profile picture – for

I love this photo taken by @janatu at her studio.

I love this photo taken by @janatu at her studio. It was brilliant being able to work so creatively with Jana to create this look, which I think is like a Gothic 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'. At one point - and quite by accident - one of the studio lights became unplugged and Jana ended up shooting using light bouncing off the mirror. I wanted to have a photo of me reading (pretty much all the photos my mum took for me until I left home where ones where I was reading) for an exciting new project launching very soon! I wanted to read a beautiful book - one that looked good as well as being one that I love - and fortunately, 'The Binding' by @bridgetbutnotjones has a gorgeous gold-embossed cover and is a brilliantly-told story. Thank you to @sophiedartist for make up and @nualamoreysalon for curly hair styling.
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#crimefictionbooks #crimefictionlovers #crimethriller #thriller #thrillerbooks #psychologicalthriller
#writers #writersofinstagram #writerscommunity #writing #books #write #bookstagram #bookworm #novel
#novelist #writer #writingcommunity #writersofig #writerslife #author
#amwriting #portraitphotograpy

The last time I was on an author photoshoot was si

I feel reading this ‘affluence noir’ needs som

I feel reading this ‘affluence noir’ needs some expensive bubbles to go with it! ‘The Fall’ by @gillymacmillan is about a youngish couple, Tom and Nicole, who win £10 million in the lottery. They buy a plot of land and have an amazing glass barn, built, complete with somewhat unreliable state-of-the-art technology, in a remote and beautiful part of the Wye Valley. Shortly after they move in, Nicole finds Tom dead in their outdoor swimming pool with a wound to his head. Suspiciously, there are two coffee cups in the cinema room, one with lipstick on the rim, and the security system was disabled at the time of Tom’s death. There are very few people nearby - only a glamorous couple, a writer and a yoga teacher, who live in the nearby Lancaut Manor, and their housekeeper. ‘The Fall’ is gorgeously written, full of twists and turns; the location and the life-style are certainly to die for, and Gilly cleverly weaves in a far grittier back story. If you love Stephen King, @petermswanson and @lucyfoleyauthor, this is for you. As for me, I couldn’t put it down. Just need to finish my fizz now!

"Let the Light Pour In" by @sissaylemn These beaut

"Let the Light Pour In" by @sissaylemn These beautiful and heart-breaking poems were written at the dawn of the day as part of Lemn's early morning practise - one poem a day, every day, for ten years. A decade on, here are the best. I loved and cried over "My Name is Why" and these poems evoke the same feelings of hope and despair. I plan to read one or more every day as part of my morning practise 🌼 Plus - and not be sneezed at when you're a writer - I relished buying a copy from an independent bookstore @waterstonesclifton and receiving a 10% discount for being a @thesocietyofauthors member! 🌤

I'm shocked – I've just discovered that two of my

I'm shocked - I've just discovered that two of my books, "The Stolen Child" and "My Mother's Secret" have been stolen by companies to train generative AI, without permission or payment and with wilful disregard to copyright or my rights as an author. I'm clearly not the only writer this has happened to. To train generative AI like ChatGPT, companies such as Meta, Bloomberg and OpenAI have stolen 191,000 books and created a dataset called Books3. Other authors whose works have been pirated are: Michael Pollen, Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, James Patterson, Stephen King and George Saunders. Alex Reisner writes: "The future promised by AI is written with stolen words," in their article “Revealed: The Authors Whose Pirated Books are Powering Generative AI”
in @theatlantic These companies claim using writers' work is "fair use". Reisner says: “Who could spend years writing a novel or researching a work of deep history without a guarantee of control over the reproduction and distribution of the finished work? Such control is part of how writers earn money to live.” “A culture of piracy has existed since the early days of the internet…it is uncomfortably apt that today’s flagship technology is powered by mass theft." "This is ‘exploitation of pirated books for profit, with the goal of replacing the writers whose work was taken.” So what can we do? In the states, some writers have launched a mass class action lawsuit supported by @authorsguild - and will send a customised letter on your behalf to all the CEO’s of companies involved in training generative AI: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/authors-guild-author-letters-to-ai-companies?source=direct_link& Please do fill this out if you're a writer. Thank you, and thanks to @thesocietyofauthors for keeping me informed and helping me find my books in the dataset.

Dreaming of Cornwall’s rugged coast, big seas, b

Dreaming of Cornwall’s rugged coast, big seas, bigger skies…I’ve just booked a winter writing retreat in Cornwall with @beachretreats. I can’t wait. I’m already planning what to write, what to read, and which winter wool-lined wetsuit to take!

I absolutely loved ‘The Familiars’ by @staceyh

I absolutely loved ‘The Familiars’ by @staceyhallsauthor, as well as her equally brilliant second historical novel, ‘The Foundling’. ‘The Familiars’ is loosely based on real characters and the trial of the so-called Pendle witches. Set in Lancashire in 1612, Fleetwood Shuttleworth is the mistress of the grand Gawthorpe Hall. She’s seventeen and pregnant for the fourth time. Her previous three children either miscarried or were still born and fearing for her life and that of her unborn child, she hires a young local midwife, Alice Gray. Unfortunately, Alice is accused of witchcraft by a malevolent magistrate hoping to impress the King with his witch-catching abilities. Fleetwood, only slightly more powerful than Alice in spite of her wealth and status, will need to save Alice if she is to save herself and her child. It’s a beautifully written, spell-binding book, and reads like a historical crime thriller, as Fleetwood attempts to piece together the clues and solve the mystery behind the crime Alice is accused of. ‘The Familiars’ is rich in historical detail, full of descriptions of meals: salmon poached in beer, oyster pies, ‘a huge pike curled gracefully on a platter the size of a carriage wheel’, the scent of the herb tonics Alice makes, dresses of ‘pale gold taffeta’, and unflinching depictions of poverty and misogyny. Right up there with my absolute favourite historical fiction: ‘Ingenious Pain’ by @andrewmiller4530 and ‘Fingersmith’ by Sarah Waters. Plus I got to finish ‘The Familiars’ before having a delicious brunch at the @lidobristol with my lovely friend, @sally.riggers

I absolutely loved Isabella Tree’s book Wilding,

I absolutely loved Isabella Tree’s book Wilding, about rewilding her and her husband, Charlie Burrell’s former dairy farm. It’s an important, influential and informative book as well as being a fantastic read. Her latest book, The Book of Wilding, cowritten with Charlie, is even more important, influential and informative. It’s like a state of the art text book on conservation today with chapters on rewilding your garden through to wilding urban sites, as well as clear instructions and information for rewilders on a larger scale. Essential reading for rewilders big and small and super helpful for us and our rewilding project @wild.pinebeck 🌸

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