Tattoo you
An Unreliable History of Tattoos By Paul Thomas (Nobrow Press, £14.99) Now spring is coming, warm sun and longer days coax many things into the open: the blossom will bloom on the bough, the baby birds will take their first flights, and men and women across the country will shed their winter plumage and reveal the summer colours inked permanently into their skin. Once upon a time tattoos were the preserve of sailors – you weren’t in the gang if you didn’t have an anchor tatto
Take a butcher's
The Butcher’s Hook by Janet Ellis (Two Roads, £14.99) What a gloriously odd little book this is. Inside its beautiful cover lurks a tale that will confound all your expectations of historical literary heroines, though its darkly intense characters are caricatures in the best tradition of eighteenth-century literature. Janet Ellis, television presenter and mother of Sophie Ellis-Bextor, graduated from the Curtis Brown Creative School in 2014 and is one of the first to be publi
Getting It Write
I almost didn’t do this course, which would have been a shame as I’ve learned so much. Back in October I had the first draft of a novel I knew wasn’t working, but didn’t know how to fix. I was starting to avoid it when a Curtis Brown newsletter pinged in advertising a three-month course tutored by Erin Kelly (below), a writer of psychological thrillers with tightly-controlled, slowly unfurling plots. Perfect timing, then. I applied, thinking I’d worry about the cost if I got
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