Avril Joy's Blog, page 9

The Astronomer’s House

I had to think quickly about my new novel – I needed to provide a synopsis and an idea of what the cover might look like – so I came up with this, photo courtesy of Unsplash.com – a wonderful resource for free images. I’m not sure it really does reflect the landscape of my […]

Forgive me but I’m still stuck in the territory of review...

Forgive me but I’m still stuck in the territory of reviews – I find I’ve just got to write something about what for me is the very new experience of reviews popping up unexpectedly, out of nowhere. One day I have twelve Amazon reviews – a few weeks later when I happen to look there […]

You will have to forgive me for posting this Goodreads re...

You will have to forgive me for posting this Goodreads review of Sometimes A River Song, by Cherry Radford. (Cherry is also a writer, although we don’t know each other) but but it just blew me away. Also – If you’re on Goodreads  – from 29th June – 7th July I will be running a […]

At The Peoples Book Prize

London was hot. Very hot. Arriving at Stationers’ Hall, a stone’s throw from Ludgate Hill, in the shadow of St Paul’s, I felt the first flutter of the ‘what am I doing here?’ nerves and wondered how long I could keep my cool. We gathered in the foyer, all finalists. The men in black tie, […]

Peoples Book Prize – Best Achievement Award

Dear Everyone this is just to say thank you so much for all your support. On Tuesday evening in London at the Peoples Book Prize Awards, I was, much to my complete surprise, awarded the Best Achievement Award, the ‘jury’ prize as it were, for Sometimes a River Song. In awarding the prize they read […]

Vote for Sometimes A River Song

Hi everyone – later today I will announce the winners of our free book competition – but now – da da!! How to cast your very final vote for Sometimes A River Song to win the People’s Book Prize. You have just one week Voting’s not that easy. I know it’s a labour of love […]

Win a Free Copy of Sometimes a River Song

On a happier and more celebratory note (than my last post!) we are giving away 6 free copies of Sometimes A River Song, to celebrate the up and coming final of The People’s Book Prize. The giveaways can be found here: on my Twitter (just a simple RT is all it takes) and on Linen […]

On Never Writing a ‘Mother.’

I’ve had this post in draft here for a while. I wasn’t going to post it – too revealing- but it’s Mental Health Awareness Week, so here goes After I’d been writing for a while it dawned on me that I never write a mother – not really. My mothers are always dead or absent  […]

Five Quotes from Natalie G

I wasn’t going to write today. There is so much going on in my writing world at the moment (to do with all the other stuff writers have to do) that I’d given myself permission not to. But then I just happened to start reading Natalie Goldberg’s, Wild Mind, (again) and before long the notebook […]

Writing a Unique First Person Voice

The question I’m most often asked about Sometimes A River Song, by both readers and fellow writers, is where did  Aiyana’s voice come from and how did I sustain it throughout this first person narrative? This post is my attempt to answer that question and share what I learned about how to develop a unique […]