Sue’s adventures in Antarctica have been chronicled in three parts with a mesmerising series of photographs on the OAPSchat website.

Read Part 1

From Ushuaia in Argentina to the Falklands…rock hopper penguins and Blackbrow Albatrosses.

Read Part 2

From the Falklands to South Georgia, the home of King Penguins, gentoo penguins and Elephant seals.

Read Part 3

We arrive at the magical Big Ice itself – blue skies and icebergs. And more fascinating penguins.

Sue recently followed Shackleton’s Antarctic journey on board a polar research ship. It was the adventure cruise of a lifetime. Read more about Sue’s adventures in the Southern hemisphere on the Cruise International website.

On the #adventure #cruise of a lifetime, @SueC00K follows Shackleton’s #Antarctica journey http://t.co/isTUCbNhlN pic.twitter.com/KyeHJl0Ht6

— Cruise International (@Cruisemag) April 8, 2015

Daily Mail Weekend Diary

Or you can read a PDF of Sue’s Diary from the Daily Mail Weekend magazine here.

Sue’s first two book are now available to download in eBook format.

Find out more about On Dangerous Ground

Find out more about Force of Nature

Download both books in eBook format

Katie Fforde is one of our best selling romantic novelists. She’s also the most supportive author I know, always willing to help and encourage up-and-coming new writers.

She took a break from working on her nineteenth book to take part in the first Chipping Norton Literary Festival in May where she was part of a panel on stage at the town’s theatre discussing writing women’s fiction alongside Veronica Henry, Jill Mansfield and Fiona Walker.

Afterwards, she and I shared a cup of coffee and very delicious slice of cake from the local Jaffe and Neale bookshop for a chat…

LISTEN NOW: Interview with Katie Fforde 2012

At the Chipping Norton Literary Festival 2012, (www.chiplitfest.com) Sue Cook interviews five authors about their work.

JOANNA TROLLOPE

Part One

Joanna Trollope – who surely qualifies as a ‘national treasure’ – has written seventeen novels under her own name since 1998 and before that several historical novels under the name Caroline Harvey.

She’s known for her beautifully researched and insightful novels which are usually centred around the domestic dramas of life in contemporary England.

I was privileged to have been asked to interview Joanna on stage at the Chipping Norton Theatre in April 2012, during the first literary festival the town has hosted. She was, as expected, a dream to talk to and the audience loved her.

After our on-stage appearance, I took the opportunity to interview her in the Green Room for Write Lines readers and listeners to BBC Oxford’s Afternoon Show the week following the Festival.

In the first part of our chat, she talks about the Orange prize – the last ever to be sponsored by Orange – which she chaired this year.

LISTEN NOW

Part Two

In the second part of our interview Joanna talks more about her own writing and in particular her most recent novel ‘The Soldiers Wife’ which highlights the difficulty the army has in moving with the times as far as the lives of army wives are concerned.

LISTEN NOW

GRAEME GARDEN

With the 40^th anniversary of ‘I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’ coming up, I interview Graeme Garden at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival about his career as comedy writer and performer.

LISTEN NOW

JOSCELINE DIMBLEBY

Part One

One of the most popular speakers at the fabulous Chipping Norton Literary Festival 2012 was Josceline Dimbleby. She is, of course, known for her hugely popular cookery books but she has turned her hand to non culinary topics for her two most recent books.

Josceline was a keen photographer from an early age and in ‘Orchards in the Oasis’ she has drawn on her own photographic archive built up during family travels all over the world to produce this gem of a book, interweaving the story of her life with delectable recipes from the countries she has visited – from Lanzarote to Vietnam.

LISTEN NOW

Part Two

In the second part of my chat with Josceline, she describes how the combination of a beautiful portrait by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones and a romantic story from her family background gave rise to ‘A Profound Secret’ – her first published departure from cookery writing.  Andrew Lloyd Webber had a part to play in making the book happen too.

LISTEN NOW

MARK BILLINGHAM

Part One

Another popular author at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival was crime writer Mark Billingham, creator of the character DI Tom Thorne.

I grabbed ten minutes with him in the Theatre’s Green Room to ask him whether, having thought up so many dastardly plots and villains over the last few years, he had come to believe that some people were just born plain evil.

LISTEN NOW

Part Two

Crime detection techniques are constantly changing so Mark has to keep up with things. I asked him if he spent a lot of his time being thrown around in the back of a police car.

Mark’s latest novel is called ‘Good As Dead’.

LISTEN NOW

KATIE FFORDE

Romantic novelist Katie Fforde has eighteen titles to her name to date, but at the rate of one novel a year, you can pretty sure it’ll be nineteen any minute now! I met up with her after a lively session on stage in the Chipping Norton Theatre where, alongside fellow authors Jill Mansell, Veronica Henry and Fiona Walker, Katie had been talking to an enthusiastic audience about the craft of writing Women’s Fiction.

Katie’s most recent novel, ‘Recipe For Love’ is published by Random House.

LISTEN NOW

Sue Cook joins a host of literary powerhouses in April at Oxfordshire’s newest Literary festival in Chipping Norton.

Real Life, Real Fiction

11.30am, Saturday 21st April – The Theatre, Chipping Norton
Sue will be interviewing Joanna Trollope to shed light on some of the areas where real life and her writing have overlapped. Tickets are available for this event from The Theatre box office.

The first ever Chipping Norton Literary Festival kicks off on Friday 20th April with a programme tailored for young readers and writers while the main programme of workshops and panel events begins at 10am on Saturday 21st April.

For more information visit the Chipping Norton Literary Festival website.

Sue Cook interviews a host of writers for The Write Lines exclusive podcasts for National Short Story Week.

Programme 1: British Short Stories

The guests discuss their own work and opportunities for short story writers, including the market for short stories and the recent increase in short story festivals and competitions. A unique and fascinating look at the short story in the UK today.

Programme 2: Women’s Fiction

The guests discuss the definition of women’s fiction and what makes good women’s fiction. They give a wealth of valuable tips for those wanting to break into the genre, including how to crack the women’s interest magazine short story market, what makes a good heroine and how to choose your characters’ names. A lively programme full of anecdotes and advice for budding women’s fiction writers.

Programme 3: Children’s Fiction

The guests discuss what children like reading, what makes a good protagonist in children’s fiction and how children’s authors today use social media to connect with their readers. The guests also give their tips on writing a good short story to those children who will be entering the Year 7 and 8 students short story competition. An entertaining and valuable insight into writing children’s fiction.

One of the UK’s most experienced and well known broadcasters, Sue Cook, brings her radio programme The Write Lines online for some exclusive shows to tie in with this year’s National Short Story Week.

Sue will be interviewing a host of writers about the short story form, their favourite short stories and their own short story collections.

Three online programmes will be available by podcast, from www.suecook.com, www.nationalshortstoryweek.org.uk and other selected websites from Monday 24th October.

Programme 1: British short stories

Sue is joined in the studio by Emily Bullock (Winner, Bristol Short Story Prize 2011), Stuart Evers (Ten Stories About Smoking, Picador 2011), Linda Leatherbarrow (award winning writer, regular contributor to Slightly Foxed) and Jonathan Pinnock (Winner, Scott Prize 2011) with further contributions via Skype from Nicholas Royle (editor, The Best British Short Stories 2011, Salt) and Helen Oyeyemi (Mr Fox, Picador 2011).

The guests discuss their own work and opportunities for short story writers, including the market for short stories and the recent increase in short story festivals and competitions. A unique and fascinating look at the short story in the UK today.

Programme 2: Women’s Fiction

Sue is joined in the studio by Rowan Coleman (Lessons in Laughing Out Loud, Arrow, 2011), Sophie King (The Wedding Party, Hodder, 2009) and Sue Moorcroft (Love and Freedom, Choc Lit, 2011).

The guests discuss the definition of women’s fiction and what makes good women’s fiction. They give a wealth of valuable tips for those wanting to break into the genre, including how to crack the women’s interest magazine short story market, what makes a good heroine and how to choose your characters’ names. A lively programme full of anecdotes and advice for budding women’s fiction writers.

Programme 3: Children’s Fiction

Sue is joined in the studio by Joe Craig (Jimmy Coates series, Harper Collins, 2005 – ), Tamsyn Murray (My So-Called Phantom Lovelife, Piccadilly Press, 2011) and Chris Priestley (Mister Creecher, Bloomsbury, 2011) with a further contribution via Skype from Jon Mayhew (The Demon Collector, Bloomsbury, 2011).

The guests discuss what children like reading, what makes a good protagonist in children’s fiction and how children’s authors today use social media to connect with their readers. The guests also give their tips on writing a good short story to those children who will be entering the Year 7 and 8 students short story competition. An entertaining and valuable insight into writing children’s fiction.

by Scott Pack

I am sometimes asked to give talks about writing and publishing and more than once I have run workshops on the subject of self-editing. I thought it might be useful to share some of my notes from these workshops. Do with them what you will.

We are all familiar with writing prompts – images, ideas or sentences intended to inspire creative writing – but at my editing workshops I distribute editing prompts. The theory is that these short, and sometimes silly, suggestions can get you to view the process of editing from a different angle.

Personally, I don’t think there is any substitute for a professional copy editor and strongly recommend that self-published authors invest in such a service. If you are one of the select few to be snapped up by a publisher then they’ll look after that for you – you lucky bugger – but whatever your position, at some point you will want to take big red felt tip to your manuscript. Here are some prompts that may help.

1. WORD CLOUD

Use an online word cloud generator to spot the words you use most often. You’ll be surprised by what you find and it will prompt a useful editing session. You might want a thesaurus handy!

2. SDRAWKCAB GNIDAER

When proofreading your work try reading backwards, starting at the last word on the page. This will ensure you are approaching the text from a new angle, will stop you ‘reading’ it and keep you on your toes.

3. WALK AWAY

There’s a lot to be said for the desk drawer. Leave a finished work for a day or more – a week would be ideal – so that you can come at it fresh with you editing hat on (you don’t actually need a special hat).

4. WE ALL GET BETTER WITH AGE

You are almost certainly a better writer now than you were when you started your book. So why not revisit the parts you wrote first and ask yourself if you would write them the same way today?

5. SHHH, LISTEN

Reading your work aloud is a great way to spot issues and problems. Better still, record yourself (or someone else) reading it and play it back later so that you can take notes.

6. YOU ALREADY KNOW ALL THIS

Chances are you already know what the problems are with your work. It might just take a bit of distance, or someone else telling you, to reinforce that.

7. SHOW, DON’T TELL

Your readers are intelligent people. They read books. They can fill in the gaps. You really don’t have to tell them everything. They’ll work it out.

8. ADVERB SIT UPS

While editing, make yourself do 10 sit ups every time you come across an adverb. You’ll soon start taking them out, or you will end up with awesome abs. Pretty much a win-win situation.

9. YOU’RE FIRED

Look out for redundancies. If you’ve said it once you don’t need to say it again.

10. FEELING TENSE?

It is not unusual for tenses to change as you write. Easy to fix.

11. GET YOUR RULER OUT

Do you really need those long sentences? And while you’re at it you can get rid of some of those long words too.

12. IT’S THE SIMPLE STUFF, STUPID

Check the basics. You have spell check, use it. Watch out for homonyms (spell check won’t find them). Make sure your formatting is consistent. All the obvious stuff, basically.

13. WAIT TILL YOU’RE FINISHED

Don’t try to edit as you go along. That way madness lies. Wait till you have written the whole thing and then you can get stuck in.

14. EDUCATE YOURSELF

You can’t drive a car, speak French or rewire your house without lessons, so why should you be able to edit? Invest in a good guide or handbook to help you on your way.

15. – NOT +

You should be taking words away, not adding them.

16. TYPING WITH THE STARS

Take some of your favourite books and type out a few pages. You will learn so much about pace, punctuation, economy of language and how to write. For some of us this is the closest we will ever come to greatness.

17. THERE’S NO ROOM FOR LOVE

If someone loves you, don’t ask them to offer feedback on your work. Find someone whose opinion you value but who won’t mind offending you with some frank and honest views.

Scott Pack – former supremo at Waterstones, now publisher and editor

Sue Cook will be sharing tips and information for aspiring writers at the Verulam Writers’ Circle annual Get Writing conference at the University of Hertfordshire on the 19^th February.

“I love writing. For me, the writing process is like a muscle you have to exercise. I used to set myself a target of 5,000 words a week.”

Sue’s first novel, On Dangerous Ground, was published in 2006. She is currently working on her third novel and adapting On Dangerous Ground for a film of the title.

Visit Verulam Writers’ Circle website for more information about Get Writing 2011.

St. Albans Review: Broadcaster Sue Cook shares writing tips with Verulam Writers’ Circle