Flush Fiction

The coming of age novel is one of our most popular and powerful literary genres. From The History of Tom Jones to Twilight, The Catcher in the …

3 ways to celebrate the future of books

Do you love to talk about publishing innovation but realise that you behaviour as a reader has barely changed? Are you truly creating, or …

5 ways to get your nature fix in London

As I type this, Soho is sunny. Not just a-few-weak winter-rays sunny, but a glorious, blazing, Vitamin D fest that has us sweating …

5 top online productivity tools for writers

Ah, tools. Such a seductive word, with that tactile, workmanlike ring. And such seductive implications. Accumulating tools feels like the very opposite of …

A Perfect Fit?

Last spring, our editor became a runner. Not a sashay-in-St-James’s-Park sort of runner, but a proper, no-fags-and-booze, marathon-by-April semi-athlete. Naturally, PHOENIX HQ …

10 social media myths for writers

What the hell happened with social media? We were told that the fierce publishing-industry lion wouldst lay down with the …

My life in twelve books

Last week, a colleague of mine asked if I would participate in a Pinterview (a Pinterest interview. Don’t judge.) called ‘My …

Close Encounters of the Word Kind

This Christmas, I bought my mother-in-law a Smythson ‘Book Notes’ journal: 128 leaves of gilt-edged, pale blue featherweight paper bound …

London’s Top 10 Cultural Cafés

People watching is one of the greatest pleasures a big city affords. It’s especially good when practiced from a warm corner with a flat white …

Forget Little Women; embrace real heroines

Did you know that Stella Gibbons, author of Cold Comfort Farm - not to mention twenty-four other novels, three volumes of short stories, …

Explore new horizons at the South Asian Literature Festival

When you sit down for a bedtime recitation Grimm’s Fairy Tales, do you realize that many of those weird and wonderful folk tales have their origins …

Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

What more can there possibly be to say about Shakespeare?

This was the ignoble thought I carried into the British Museum’s much-hyped autumn blockbuster, Shakespeare: staging …

Theatreland’s celebrity ladder

TThe moment Stephen Fry utters his first lugubrious syllable in Tim Carroll’s Twelfth Night at The Globe, a frisson runs through the assembled crowd. …

Writers’ rooms

Why do I have such an enduring fascination with seeing the places that writers write? Forget overblown S&M; Fifty Shades …

Why happy amateurs win

“I got up at 7.30 and wrote for an hour before I got on my train. I wrote on the train for two and a …