This is just a short missive to let anyone with a tale to tell know that The Fine Line’s inaugural short story competition is now open for entries.  Whatever your taste, style or inspiration, submit your tale and you could win £200 ($320/€230) and publication in The Fine… Read full post »

A couple of weeks ago, I put an article on my site about swear words and whether they still have the power to shock.  (Is It The Only Word We Have Left? unless you're of a delicate disposition.)  A few days later, I sent an update to fans of the site's… Read full post »

A few weeks ago, I went to an evening of talks about Getting Published, given by women with various jobs in the publishing industry.  The women were entertaining, the talks interesting, and the atmosphere comradely.  Chatting to the organiser in the bar afterwards, I mentioned that I notice… Read full post »

The Zeal and Softness Becoming to the Sex: the Origins of the Agony Aunt

In 1693, the first British women's magazine, The Ladies' Mercury, was published.  It ran for only four issues before folding.  Quite why its run was so brief is unclear, particularly given the fact that its male… Read full post »

The Legend of Sander Grant by Marc Phillips

Every once in a while a book comes along that, almost without you realising, seeps into you until all you want to do is inhabit its world.  Work is pointless, eating is an inconvenience, and sleep is but an intermission.  The people… Read full post »

I'm a little premature, I know, in thinking about summer reading, but after three sunny days in a row, I'm hopeful summer may be on its way. So, if you're looking for something to put in your suitcase, here are some books I've come across that you might want to avoid. … Read full post »

Writing at its best seduces.  This is your aim: to take the reader into the world of your making and convince them to stay.  The urge to write begins with enticement and so should the urge to read.  You got into writing for all manner of reasons: love,… Read full post »

Since kindly Aphrodite spilt blood upon a white rose to aid her wounded lover, Adonis, a red rose has symbolised love everlasting – or a passing passion if it’s simply a flower and not a symbol of the life blood you would give to save a beloved.… Read full post »

Courtship rituals have long been an interest of mine, in their many peculiar permutations and, Hallmarked-out, I decided I'd do a little reading up on them.  Started on Valentine's eve, actually.  I appreciate the irony of sitting in reading about courtship on that particular date… Read full post »

Every once in a while, a book comes along in which the pacing is so precise, the pitch so perfect, the language so measured, and the cast so beguiling that I am mesmerized and awed. Louise Shivers’ first novel, Here to get My Baby out of Jail appeared over twenty years… Read full post »

Mythical tales of love are many – countless, perhaps – and have a tendency towards the melodramatic at best and the tragic at worst.  A few weeks ago, in an attempt to remain in keeping with the celebration of love that is St Valentine’s Day, I searched the scores of mythologic… Read full post »

I have a very learned friend with a passion for 20’s literature and a PhD in Psychoanalysis and Modernism’s Departure From Femininity.  She got married a little while ago and, appropriately, had a fabulously 20’s themed wedding with flapper dresses and tables named after the er… Read full post »

I'm utterly delighted at the number of entries we've had in the Fine Line Editorial free caption competition. If you want to make the January 31st deadline for a chance to win a moleskine, get to http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/caption-writing-competition/ Doesn't matter what you intend to write i… Read full post »

The muse is a myth.  In her classical guise, she is nothing more than a comforting tale for the creatively bereft.  There are no ladies, high on the crystal waters of the Castalian spring, waiting to allay your writerly angst as they gaze down upon you from Mount Parnassus with their… Read full post »

My Husband Ran Off With The Nanny And God Do I Miss Her by Tracy Davis

With a dull midlife crisis of a husband, a lush French nanny, two obstreperous children, and a job that by turns excites and brings her close to death by boredom, Carly Macalister’s life is,… Read full post »

Ladies and Gentlemen, you have less than two weeks to provide Oscar Wilde with something to fill his empty head for the chance to win a moleskine at http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/caption-writing-competition/. It's an essential part of any writer's wardrobe and could just be the start of that boo… Read full post »

In August 1937 writer Elizabeth Smart walked into a London bookshop, opened a collection of poems by George Barker and fell in love.  By the time they met and began an affair three years later – resulting in the birth of four children, although he never left his wife – she… Read full post »

There isn’t a whole heap left to say about Zelda Fitzgerald.  Common consensus states she was a drunk, a Southern Belle, a madwoman, one half of the 20’s most garrulous couple, the definitive Flapper, and a writer, painter, and dancer frustrated at every turn by some wider desire for… Read full post »