Jo Fletcher Articles

To celebrate the upcoming publication of her vivid, wildly imaginative historical fantasy, Gods of Jade and Shadow (out 23rd July), Silvia Moreno-Garcia discusses 1920s post-revolution Mexico, which forms the background of the novel and Casiopea’s journey.   In the 1920s, Mexico was coming out of a decade-long Revolution. The nation was eager to put the previous […]

Now on his fifth novel, Council (published 16 May 2019), Snorri Kristjansson is no stranger to the world of Vikings. From sweeping epics to taut mysteries, his novels have enthralled us time and time again with their rich detail, fast-paced action and engaging humour. So there’s no one better to give us a little sneak […]

  Vonda N. McIntyre died at 6:25 pm, Pacific Time, in no pain and surrounded by friends. Vonda was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on February 7, less than two months ago. Her dedicated band of friends and caregivers have let me know that they’ll be organising a reception within about a month (probably in Seattle, […]

  The third book of my epic fantasy series The Sunsurge Quartet – entitled Hearts of Ice – comes out in March 2019, and I’ve just finished drafting the fourth book. As the series has progressed its political content has caused my publisher to ask for a blog about its politics: here’s that blog. The […]

  To celebrate the publication of Strife’s Bane, the final instalment of The Shattered Kingdoms series, in paperback, Evie Manieri takes us through ten things the women of the Shatter Kingdoms most certainly are not. One day, the debate about what makes a Strong Female Character will cease. I know I’m an optimist, but I think […]

  With Shattermoon about to come out in paperback, I thought I’d write a little something about my influences and how I set about writing the book. Shattermoon was the third novel I finished, and the first to get published. I’d always wanted to write a space opera, and my previous efforts in other SFF […]

  My wife Kerry and I lived in India 2006-2010, in New Delhi. In 2007, I had my first novel accepted for publication (The Bone Tiki, a YA fantasy set in New Zealand, by HarperCollins New Zealand), and that encouraged me to look for more writing inspiration. As a Kiwi living in Asia for the […]

Assistant Editor Molly Powell is bullied into choosing her favourite Christmas reads . . . December: it’s dark, it’s cold, and it should be snowing,but we’re stuck with rain instead. It’s that time of year again – time for closed curtains, lit candles, fuzzy socks, and more time on the sofa than is probably good […]

Molly began her Christmas lists before the first jack-o’-lanterns appeared. Gene said a couple of times, as the lists got longer, ‘We don’t need to overdo it, Molly.’ But, yes, she thought, I do. If she died, she wanted on her tombstone Cory’s First Christmas Was Perfect. In Our Child of the Stars, one chapter […]

On Thanksgiving, there’s historically been an emphasis on the earliest days of the U.S., and a meal shared by European settlers and Native Americans. While that narrative and the way it’s presented has become more than a little problematic, I still embrace the idea that we ought to have at least one day a year […]

Tom Fletcher, author of The Leaping, The Thing on the Shore and Idle Hands gives us his take on Halloween – from memories, to popular culture, to it’s important in his own work. Halloween. The first thing that comes to mind is apple bobbing – trying to eat apples as they floated in a bucket of water, no hands […]

It’s Hallowe’en, the spookiest time of the year. The temperature has dropped, those balmy summer evenings nothing now but a memory, and the moon hangs heavy in the sky as the year turns towards its end. The leaves have fallen and now rustle underfoot, trampled by eager Black Panthers and Wonder Women, Daenerys Targaryens and […]

Quercus author Neil Spring on predicting a mystery yet to happen, and his new novel The Burning House. Although Halloween is time of ghoulish festivity and fun for many, that isn’t necessarily true for the inhabitants of far-flung hamlet of Foyers, which nestles in the wooded shores of Loch Ness. For hundreds of years, locals here […]

Alison Littlewood, author of The Crow Garden and The Hidden People, give us her take on the folklore behind the crow and its influences on The Crow Garden. For Halloween, I thought I’d share some of the folklore and legends about crows that I came across in writing The Crow Garden. There are many stories told of these beautiful birds, […]

Blood and Death Became My Refuge Mats Strandberg, author of Blood Cruise, on losing a parent, grief and the power of writing. My mother died a few weeks after I had finished the first draft of Blood Cruise. All things considered, we had a good last couple of days while she was in the hospital. We […]