Emily Paull

Are you keeping a journal right now? If so, historians of the future will most likely thank you, because I can tell you now, people are going to look back on this time and want to know what life was really like. Why were so many people watching Tiger King? Who was really hoarding all of the toilet paper, and what were they doing with it? How did people's jobs change? These are the questions (among many) that might plague researchers and writers in the future. Your journal is not just a record for you-- it's an historical artefact. But if, like me, some days you open your journal and your mind goes blank, then don't worry. I've compiled a list of prompts for you to write your responses to-- one for every day in May.  Enjoy! 1. W hat items haven't you been able to get at the supermarket (other than Toilet Paper)? 2. Been for a walk lately? Tell us about the people you saw on your most recent trip outside. 3. If you've been having vivid dreams, write...

So I'm not really writing right now. It feels weird to put it down in stark, black letters to publish on the internet, when so much of the online presence of an author these days is about being cheerful and productive and taking pictures of cute animals. But there it is. I am finding it really hard to concentrate on writing my book. It's not the book, because I love  the book that I'm writing. Although I am writing a section in which one of the characters is recovering in hospital from a mustard gas attack in the trenches of France, and he's having severe respiratory distress, plus it's 1917 and in a year's time the Spanish Influenza is going to hit my characters' lives... but no, it's really not the book.  It's me. I can't concentrate. For a while there, I couldn't even concentrate on reading. I'd read half a chapter-- no matter how short the chapters of the book were-- and then I'd find myself once again with my phon...

The Year Without Summer Guinevere Glasfurd Two Roads Books, 2020 (My copy courtesy of the publisher) In 1815, a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora, Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, causes destruction and chaos for the local populations. Villages are wiped out by the immediate effects of the eruption, and surrounding communities begin to starve to death as crops fail and animal life is sparse. A nearby ship, the Benares  goes to investigate. Ship's surgeon, Henry Hogg is horrified not only by what he sees but by the callous reactions of his captain and shipmates, all of which he records in letters home to his wife, Emmalina. Elsewhere in the world, the effects of the eruption are felt too. 1816 became known as The Year Without Summer, as climates around the world began to change due to the thick blanketing of smoke and ash drifting through the atmosphere. Glasfurd's sophomore novel, the follow up to the highly successful The Words in my Hand , follows the lives of six indi...