Writers' careers

You would be forgiven for having missed one particular news story that did the rounds in August this year. ‘Briton suspected of spying for Russia arrested in Germany' read the BBC headline, and the accompanying article, describing the arrest of a Scottish security guard working at the British embassy in Berlin, suggested that the same old shadow games were still being played.

At a party many years ago, I jokingly told another guest that I'd do my best to remember his name after I published a book to great acclaim. I meant to be funny and disarming, but I bungled the delivery. I came off like a jerk. This other guest was a writer, too, and an equally self-serious one. Predictably, he took offense. He pointed his beer bottle at me.  Read more

Lockdown offered many frustrated writers a key to unbolt the constraints of daily routine and an opportunity to work on the novel or work of nonfiction that has been gathering dust in their minds or in a bottom drawer for years. If 2022 is the year to take your book to the next stage - we asked authors and publishing professionals for their advice on how to make that happen.

When Penguin Random House announced in July that it would be publishing a memoir by Prince Harry, there was one name that was, conspicuously and appropriately, left off the press release. The man channeling the Duke of Sussex's voice for the book, J.R. Moehringer, was nowhere to be found among the details the publisher released.  Read more

Does it sound grand to say I have always written? It took me thirty years to get published, but now the second in the series of Albert the tortoise picture books is launching.  Read more