© 2007 Emma Cole
Made by Serif
As a former museum curator, I know how much effort it takes to keep history alive
so we never forget where we came from. The Camp X Historical Society works every
day to preserve and promote what the women and men like Amelia and Deacon experienced
during the war.
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A favourite new web site to visit is this one, newly created by fellow Mary Stewart
fans. Drop by and take a look.
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One of my favourite series characters would have to be Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry
Mason. I always liked his sharp intelligence, and how he could manipulate the legal
process without sacrificing justice.
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Strickland Gillilan’s poem The Reading Mother always makes me think of my mother,
and the wonderful worlds to which she introduced me.
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On the subject of spies...
Daniel Craig’s obvious assets notwithstanding, my favourite Bond remains, hands down, Sean Connery. Visit the Web site he shares with his talented wife at www.seanconnery.com.
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Kate’s favourite city is London, England. So, coincidentally, is mine. One of my
favourite traditions when visiting London? Walking the Embankment in the early evening
by Westminster bridge, to watch the lights come on along the Thames.
Grandma Murray’s Bloody Caesar...
Rim a tall glass with lemon and dip in mixed salt and black pepper. Drop in a few ice cubes, an ounce (or more) of vodka, a dash each of tabasco and Worcestershire sauces, then fill with Clamato® juice. Garnish with celery and lemon. Enjoy!
After Long Silence
Posted September 2, 2009
That was, by the way, the working title that I used while writing Every Secret Thing: After Long Silence, from the poem of the same name by W.B. Yeats. I even arranged for (and paid for) permission to use it, and that’s why the excerpt remains in the front of the book, since it still suits the story quite well. So it seems rather fitting that those lines should be turning round in my head once again, now that I’m getting close to the end of the next Kearsley novel and can finally think of getting back to being Emma Cole, however briefly.
My original plan, as you may recall, was to give my alter-
A rotten thing to do, I know. And if she never spoke to me again I couldn’t blame her. That’s always been my fear, those rare occasions when I’ve stopped work on a story to write something else entirely – the fear that, when I do get back to working on the first book I’ll discover all the characters have given up on waiting for me and gone off, and taken my ideas with them, and I’ll never get them back.
So I was very much relieved this week, while lying in my bathtub (where I feel the most inspired) to hear Kate’s voice speaking up again, if faintly, and to glimpse a few small bits of scenes from Greece, as though she, too, is keen to get things moving.
Speech, as Yeats said, feels good after long silence.
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The following entries are now archived. Click on any one you want to read.
Erle Stanley Gardner
My bookshelves are full of old Perry Mason books because few writers, then or now, match Gardner’s skill in depicting American law and the ways an intelligent lawyer can bend it to best serve his clients. Here’s his Wikipedia page.
Catherine Gaskin
Her thriller The File on Devlin is another of my treasured reads, and one I love to pass along to others. There isn’t much about her on the internet as yet, but the site Fantastic Fiction does have a brief biography, and shows some of her books. They’re well worth hunting down.
Kurt Vonnegut
A talented, clever and principled man who was never afraid to point out that the emperor didn’t have clothes on. The ending of Player Piano is classic, and Cat’s Cradle changed my whole view of what fiction could be. Read this tribute to learn more about how he lived and what he wrote and why he’s a favourite of mine. So it goes.
Evelyn Anthony
The fact that she was one of the judges of the prize that launched my own career made the prize itself more precious to me, and the fact that I met her in person at the awards luncheon put me over the moon. Among her many thrillers, The Tamarind Seed remains my favourite, and her series that begins with The Defector, featuring Davina Graham, gave me inspiration to attempt a series of my own. Here’s an introduction to her life and work.
Agatha Christie
I think -
Anne Armstrong Thompson
Her Message from Absalom remains one of my all-
Mary Stewart 
A true master. No one can make me get lost in a book like this woman. If you’ve never read her, try This Rough Magic or The Moonspinners for starters, and you’ll know why I’m so keen to take my characters to Greece.
To learn more about the woman and her work, click here.
A blog, to be a proper blog, needs to be updated every few days. So this isn’t a blog. It just looks like one.