Fiction writers

After two years off because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the London book fair, one of the biggest international literary events, returned in full force last week.

Publishers, authors and illustrators gathered at Olympia in Kensington to buy and sell the books we will all be reading next year.So what did we learn from the deals made at the fair?

Les Cowan, author of the David Hidalgo crime thriller series, considers the importance of setting

Are you a country girl or a city boy? Would a week in Las Vegas be a dream or a nightmare? What about a holiday in the Highlands? Is the city exciting and full of possibilities or a world of dangers just waiting to pounce? As in life, so in art - place is important.  Read more

What happens when "bigger is better" becomes an ethos for an entire society? From SUVs that will never see a dirt road to McMansions that could fit several families, American culture right now abounds with an excess of, well, excess. The normalization of this can distort priorities, creating a sense that something far larger than what we need is what we want.  Read more

According to 2017 estimates released this summer by the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies, sales of adult fiction fell 16% between 2013 and 2017, from $5.21 billion to $4.38 billion. The numbers, though not a major worry, raise questions about the books the industry is publishing and what consumers want to read.

A lifetime ago, it seems, I used to write fiction. I wrote little stories on scraps of paper as a young kid; throughout grade school, I filled my unused notebooks with attempts at novels; I wrote a few short stories in high school and college. But since I started freelancing full-time a decade ago, I haven't written a single line of fiction.