I love a good map. A real one, something crinkly and mostly green with those yellow and red lines that until Google Earth came along were just tantalizing suggestions of journeys. They send you to villages that when you reach them look nothing like your imagined destination. They are drawn out by someone fearsomely accurate … Continue reading
Author Archives: Fleur Hitchcock
Shhhhhhh.
It’s that time of year when darkness closes around houses, filling the stairwell, blanking out the windows, lurking beneath beds. We’re in the little patch of autumn before Christmas lights appear, when we like to scare and be scared. And then just to make it worse, we watch films designed to scare us. The ones where the … Continue reading
Carrying a notebook, or not.
I seem to remember that one of the things that lots of people recommend to anyone that wants to be a writer, is that they should carry a notebook. Brilliant. That means that every time you have an idea, observe anything interesting, sit in a special place that you don’t want to forget, you can … Continue reading
Lost in translation
Last week, Dear Scarlett was published in French. I haven’t seen it yet, but I know that the translation is fantastic, because I spent three hours talking to the fabulous translator Catherine Guillet and I know that it has the same glorious cover. In it, Scarlett and Ellie visit a lido, an outdoor swimming pool. … Continue reading
I love reading, I love libraries.
I’m writing this blog in the library, volunteering for the Summer Reading Challenge, and really enjoying myself. It’s raining right now, so I get the fantastic sound of heavy rain beating on the glass roof high above my head, and I’m watching people loitering in the foyer wondering if they can run anywhere without getting soaked. … Continue reading
My inner hero. Bringing her to life.
Have you ever fancied yourself as a hero? A real one. The sort that thinks nothing of jumping from the roof of a speeding train to rescue a kitten from the wheels of a passing car, or grabbing a toddler from certain death in oncoming waves while besieged by gangsters/aliens/jellyfish. When I was younger, I used to … Continue reading
If you love books, love booksellers
Yesterday I felt the need to buy a book – nothing in particular, just a new book to drool over. I went to Bradford on Avon. It’s a small pretty town in Wiltshire, not far from Bath, with pretty shops and lots of cafes. There I bought food from the market, returned books to … Continue reading
