The Literary Sofa
Isabel Costello
2014 – My Year in Books
It’s that time again! Now I’ve finalised Hot Picks 2015, which will be published here on Friday 12 December, I’ve finally had a chance to look back on my 2014 reading. This is only the third year I’ve kept a record: in both 2012 and 2013 I managed 68 books but this year, somehow, I’ve read … Continue reading
Guest Post – Ben Blackman on the Christmassy Sofa
I am not a Christmas person but now December is here I am a willing participant in the bit I do like – the social gatherings. My ideal Christmas consists of escaping somewhere hot and far away with my husband and kids and luckily that’s just what we have planned this year. Today’s silly season blog guest … Continue reading
First Draft – Hitting the Target
On 26 May I began the first draft of a new novel, aiming to complete it by Christmas. Coincidentally, exactly six months later, I’ll reach my target of 80,000 words today. I am slightly cheating because it’s not quite finished (another week will do it) but I’m so close that I’m already feeling the relief and … Continue reading
Book Review – Let me be Frank with you by Richard Ford
First of all, I really want to thank everyone who read, shared and discussed my last blog post My first year as an agented writer and to welcome all new readers to the Literary Sofa. The response was absolutely overwhelming both in size (2,000 hits in a few days!) and impact. I cried and so did … Continue reading
My First Year as an Agented Writer
A year ago, after a radical re-write of my first novel, I found myself in the midst of something I never thought would happen – having previously failed to get anywhere, my book and I had finally succeeded in attracting the interest of several literary agents. I’ve been thinking back to that fevered, exhilarating time … Continue reading
Guest Author – Charles Lambert on Writing a Novel in Fragments
Today’s featured title With a Zero at its Heart was released in May 2014 but I only read it recently, on the recommendation of several friends who predicted I would love it. They were right. My keen interest in narrative structure dates back to my student days, and although this novel in fragments has many … Continue reading
Guest Author – Alice Jolly on Crowdfunding – How to make new friends (and lose old ones)
*PUBLICATION UPDATE – JULY 2015* **CONGRATULATIONS to Alice Jolly and to her publishers Unbound on the publication of Dead Babies and Seaside Towns. The hardback edition (see the cover below) is a thing of beauty as befits this extraordinary true story and it is rightfully receiving a great deal of media attention.** As with many … Continue reading
Literary Inspiration
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration and where it comes from, and going in search of it. Once I decided to write this post I had one of my regular bouts of word blindness and wondered if I even knew what the word means: INSPIRATION 1 The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to … Continue reading
Endless Distractions
I’m winging it this week. The planned guest post hasn’t materialised – nobody’s fault, just one of those things. And right now life is full of ‘those things’. I’m finding it hard to keep all my plates spinning – maybe that’s why my eye was drawn to author David Mitchell’s piece in The Atlantic. It’s called … Continue reading
Author Events – with a guest appearance from Francis Plug
Apologies to anyone wanting to read a serious article about author events. This isn’t one. But it is a historic event, or if you want to get all literary, an historic event. It was supposed to be a guest author post but that went wrong from the start when South London New Zealander Paul Ewen, … Continue reading
My new novel SCENT – out in paperback on 19 May 2022
The Literary Sofa 