Author Archives: Judith Barrow

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About Judith Barrow

Pattern of Shadows was my first novel, the sequel, Changing Patterns was published in May 2013. The last of the trilogy, Living in the Shadows was published July 2015. In August 2017, the prequel to the trilogy, A Hundred Tiny Threads,was published. In March 2010, The Memory was published by Honno, a contemporary family saga. I also have an eBook, Silent Trauma, a fiction built on fact novel, published as an eBook. I have an MA in Creative Writing, B.A. (Hons.) in Literature, and a Diploma in Drama and Script Writing. I've had short stories, poems, plays, reviews and articles published throughout the British Isles, notably in several Honno anthologies. I am also a Creative Writing tutor and run workshops on all genres and available for talks and workshops.My blogs are on my website: https://judithbarrowblog.com/ where I review,interview other authors, and generally write about walks & photographs. At the moment I'm running a series of posts called Places in our memories, where writers talk about somewhere that brings back a memory. Always happy to hear from anyone who would like to join in with that. When I'm not writing or teaching creative writing I spend time researching for my writing, painting or walking the Pembrokeshire coastline

Where’s the Most Unusual Place You’ve Had a Book-Signing?

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I arrive at my book-signing event to be greeted with a small table covered with an immaculate table cloth, my books already displayed, a notice announcing my presence  and, as always, a lovely vase of flowers as a centrepiece. The staff are friendly and chatty (today it’s Carolyn … and Sharon, complete with big smiles ). I already know them; after all I’ve been holding book-signings here for the last five years and I’ve been a customer of the shop for more years than I care to remember. Nothing unusual in that, I hear you say; we’ve all done events in stores we know. But this venue is special, this is our local chemist, Kilgetty Pharmacy. And, when first forced to admit to myself that I needed to go forth and sell, this was the second local event I was welcomed to.

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Putting on a pose – me with Jane Gilbert (who owns the shop with her husband, Bart)

I’d talked with Jane about my writing for years (I’m not sure she ever thought I’d be published but she was always tremendously encouraging). Anyway, the day that Pattern of Shadows came out I couldn’t wait to show her. Without hesitation she asked, would I like to hold a book-signing in the shop. I was thrilled – thought there was nothing odd about appearing at a chemist. Up to date I’ve been four times, they’ve sold loads of my books,and I’ll be there again just before Christmas.

Kilgetty Pharmacy isn’t just a place where people go to have prescriptions filled; it’s an Aladdin’s cave of  goodies. It’s where I’ve bought gorgeous scarves and unusual handbags.  Husband tries to ban me from going into the  shop; the temptations to buy are always too strong!

And their claim to fame? In 2013, in a UK wide Easter  competition held by Bronley for the best window display, this chemist  won first prize. I believe the prize was a jolly to Paris for two of the staff!!

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A few shots of the busy shop … er … well it was busy until I produced my mobile to take photos … then the staff scuttled off and customers disappeared. (I made the mistake of asking permission.) Hah!

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Two kind ladies who did agree to pose, while looking for a present. There are treasures for all kinds of occasions: Engagements, Weddings, Births,, Birthdays (from one to a hundred years old!)) Celebrations of all kinds, Cards, Festive ornaments, Treats for pets, Treats for the birds in the garden … and … and …

Highlight of the day? No less than three sales  reps came in to sell their stock to the shop … and I sold  a signed copy of one of my books to  each of the . Yay!!

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My thanks go to  Jane & Bart Gilbert, Carolyn Finlay,, Sharon, Val, Linda, Carolyn Jones,  Jane Goldsmith and Sue  for a great day. See you next time!

So, all you authors out there – a challenge! Where’s the most unusual place  you’ve held a book signing? Do please tell – with photos if possible!

Links:

http://amzn.to/1fPSfJ5

https://www.facebook.com/judith.barrow.3

https://twitter.com/barrow_judith

https://plus.google.com/+JudithBarrowauthor

LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/1fNP6t2

Bit of self publicity here:

Hush! The first two books of the trilogy are on offer at £1.89 at the moment.

Pattern of Shadows: http://amzn.to/1Denx74

Changing Patterns: http://amzn.to/1MxOvJ0

Living in the Shadows: the last of the trilogy, published in July: http://amzn.to/1JzO3Jh

All also available in paperback on Amazon and from my publishers

http://www.honno.co.uk/med full colour honno logo

Woman of the week: Judith Barrow and her new release: Living in the Shadows

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What a wonderful surprise – bowled over by this gesture from the ever – generous Christoph

Christoph Fischer's avatarwriterchristophfischer

Author Judith BarrowOver the last week I’ve seen a lot of blog posts about a very talented writer and a wonderful woman: Judith Barrow.

So I’ve decided to crown her Woman of the Week!download (3)

Check out some of her memories here:

http://scvincent.com/2015/07/26/guest-author-judith-barrow-memories-a-short-story-and-a-new-book/

Here she is as  interview guest on my blog a while ago.

Here is her contribution to womens healthweek:

https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/womens-health-week-guest-author-judith-barrow-breast-cancer-survivor-2/
Living in the Shadows by Judith Barrow

And this is her new book:

Living in the Shadows which concludes her amazing trilogy.

Here is an article on Judith’s blog about the inspiration behind it :

https://judithbarrowblog.com/2014/11/23/the-inspiration-behind-pattern-of-shadows/

I’ve got the book at home and can’t wait to get a chance to read it.

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Find the Book on Amazon US and UK

Connect with Judith on her blog 

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What’s in a Book’s Elevator Pitch?

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Didn’t realise I was doing an ‘elevator pitch’ when I sold one of my books to the guy who delivered them to the door. Must have worked! Wish now I could remember what I said!

Ron Herron's avatarPainting With Light

elevator2An Elevator Ride Doesn’t Last Very Long

Every author has been in the position where someone asks them to describe his/her book. It happened to me several times at a book-signing last Saturday (although, if you read my previous blog post, it didn’t happen as often as I hoped it would).*

What’s your book about?

The answer you give to that question is called an “elevator pitch.”

The term itself comes from the scenario of an accidental meeting with someone important. It’s any quick, catchy pitch you can deliver in the short time it takes for an elevator to reach its destination.

I’m sure you’ve heard the term before. I didn’t invent it. It’s been around the business world for decades. Now, however, as an indie author you need to think about it in terms of your new book.

By preparing an elevator pitch in advance for your book…

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Three Quote Challenge – III

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Sue Vincent's avatarSue Vincent's Daily Echo

dawn 003

“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

— Oscar Wilde

Éilis, whose poetry and writing you can find on The Sound of What Happens,  tagged me in the Three Quote Challenge.

First, you thank the person who tagged you. Then, post a quote you love on three consecutive days. Choose another person to carry on, if they so choose and have the time.

I’d like to invite S.K. Nicolls, author of Red Clay and Roses to participate. Hope you’ll join in, Susan!

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000031_00016]

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How to survive your fictional characters all night bickering in six easy ways…

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very useful advice. Hah!

Chris The Story Reading Ape's avatarChris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

It is two AM. You are wrestling with one of your fictional characters as to, well it really depends on your fictional character. Mine decided that the furry Ape needed another blog post. Actually, it was one of her decrees. And don’t tell her, I just referred to her as a fictional character! Please!

Frankly, if you start using your fictional character’s name as passwords for your real life social networks and other electronic devices, you are a goner. My friend you may as well kiss your sleep good-bye. If she or he (let me just stick with one pronoun from now on) decides that you will absolutely listen to her at two AM, no earplug ever invented is going to shut her out.

1. Get up and write

First of all, you may as well get up out from that comfy duvet and get to your primary writing device…

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Review: “Death in a Red Canvas Chair: A Rhe Brewster Mystery” by N Granger

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Another great review for a N Granger book!

Christoph Fischer's avatarwriterchristophfischer

18132001Review for Death in a Red Canvas Chair: A Rhe Brewster Mystery (Rhe Brewster Mysteries Book 1) by N Granger

This is a quirky cosy mystery with ER nurse Rhe Brewster at the centre of the investigation. When her son plays soccer and she discovers a body dumped by the side of the game, Rhe alarms the authorities and before you know it, she is deeply involved in solving the case. Rhe is quite a character, the most apt description of herself is: “despite his PhD in Psychology he (her husband) still doesn’t understand me.” I think many would struggle and that is what makes her such a wonderful and watchable protagonist.
Familiar with Sheriff Sam there is little that can stop her.
The victim was a college student and the investigation starts to step on Rhe’s husband’s toes, a professor at the same college.
The plot is quite complex…

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Guest Post – Nicholas C. Rossis: Finding Inspiration

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“What if we pity them only because we can’t see the full picture? “A quote from one of Nicholas’ short stories – The Twist in the Tale. Having lived with two of my relative who’s suffered this dreadful desease, this question made me stop and think. A great interview..

Sue Vincent's avatarSue Vincent's Daily Echo

I am delighted to host Nicholas C. Rossis today as he launches his new book, Infinite Waters, a collection of short stories. Nicholas is the award winning author of a number of books, including the superb Pearseus series that cleverly blends the best of Sci-Fi with elements of mythology and philosophy, as well as the delightful Runaway Smile, a children’s story in which a young boy discovers that the only smiles that matter are the ones that are shared.

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Nicholas’ blog is a popular one; full of informative articles on writing, publishing and marketing, often tinged with humour and with links to a number of stories to read free online. Quite apart from that, he is a genuinely supportive writer and a nice guy. No surprise then that he has received several nominations for the upcoming Annual Blogger’s Bash Awards, hosted by Sacha Black.

Finding Inspiration

writeratwork (2)Like many…

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100-Word Challenge for Grownups -Week 157

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Let's CUT the Crap!'s avatarHow the Cookie Crumbles

Check out below, on how it’s done and come on down:

https://jfb57.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week157-2/

This week’s prompt is … at last we were free… + 100 words

100wcgu-72

A New Page

Trina had to pull herself together. I need a cold shower. She pounded on her roommate’s bedroom door. Quiet as a tomb.

“Sarah. Wake up.” Trina squinted at the clock down the hall. “Come on, kiddo.” She gave the door another whack and proceeded to the bathroom and turned the water on. Then off. Odd. She paused. Blinked. And retraced her steps. “Time to sober up.” She turned the knob. “It’s Graduation Day. Remember we said we were free to start… Sarah…? A new page for the rest of our lives?

“You’re so cold.”

Oh. My. God.

Where’s my cell? “I need an ambulance. Hurry-please!”

The End

© 2015 Tess and How the Cookie Crumbles All Rights Reserved

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#Guestauthor. N. A. Granger(@rhebrewster) and her books. A heroine who knows where she is and what she’s talking about.

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olganm's avatarJust Olga

Hi all:

As you know on Fridays it’s guest author day. Recently I’ve been trying to catch up with some authors whose blogs I’ve been following for a while, but for some reason I haven’t featured yet. Today, it’s the turn of Noelle Granger (or N.A. Granger in her books).We not only have background interests (medical ) in common, but Noelle also spotted we had both studied at Mount Holyoke College (in my case only one year as an exchange student, but hey, it goes to prove the world is very small).

First, as I’ve mentioned her blog, and to make sure I don’t forget it, here is SaylingAway. Go and check it and you’ll see that Noelle loves her traveling, but she also features fellow authors, shares her writing, and muses about life.

And a little about her:

Author N.A. Granger Author N.A. Granger

Noelle A. Granger grew up in…

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The Sunday Show.. A funny thing happened to me with author Jane Dougherty

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Northern Light

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Memories … and What Comes Next

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This is the view I saw from the window of my bedroom in the house I lived in as a child until the day I married. The war memorial, an Obelisk, on Alderman’s Hill is called Pots and Pans. No one seems to know why. When I was eleven I had a dog (a Heinz Fifty-Seven variety; a cross between a corgi and a terrier,  who probably these days would be called a Torgi) named Rusty. She and I could  climb and run back down the hill in twenty minutes. Nowadays I think it would take me an hour just to get to the top. I’m not even going to try.

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The house itself doesn’t change. Each tread of the stairs has its own noise; a soft whisper, a sigh of relief underfoot, a crack of protest. Each door sounds my progress through the house; the bedroom door protests its opening on the ill-fitted carpet, the bathroom door shushes closed. Downstairs the living room door opens quietly, then creaks as it’s forced against the many painted-over the hinges and frame. Finally there’s the heavy sigh of kitchen door, as though opening onto another day’s toil.

It’s my mother’s house.    Once I lived here too. Now I visit.

 

 

 

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It’s six o’clock in the morning.With laptop and cup of tea I settle down to write. I must have done this hundreds of times before. I wait to hear the thud of her feet as she stomps across the bedroom, the sound of her peeing in the bathroom, the yank on the chain of the flush of the old-fashioned cistern. I hold my breath, force back the slight irritation, hope she gets back into bed. But the mumblings get louder. I hear her tap on my bedroom door: ‘Judith?’ followed by the feigned echo  of surprise; ‘you’re up already?’ as she takes the first two steps onto the landing.

In the past I bit back the exasperation. She knew I wrote at this time. I always have; it’s my time. We had a day of shared memories to get through. Again. Of laughing at the old black and white photographs; the different and often outrageous hairstyles and perms, her hats and frilly blouses, my flower-power flared jeans and mini skirts.   Hours of mindless TV;  Jeremy Kyle, This Morning, Doctors. Lunchtimes;  chomping mournfully through thinly buttered Ryvita on diet days –   joyfully savouring meat and potato pies and custard slices on  ‘who gives a damn’ days. Then the comfort of the afternoon nap and the quiet hour of companionable reading.

I wait to hear the thud of her feet as she stomps across the bedroom floor.

It doesn’t happen.

Some weeks ago, a quick phone call, a frantic journey brought us to to this part of the country, to the hospital, to the ward, to the bed she sat up … cheerfully waving as we walk towards her. ‘Hello love,’ she shouted, ‘ well, here’s another fine pickle I’ve got myself into.’ She seemed perfectly clear, lucid for a few minutes. Then she called me Olive, her sister who’d died some years ago, mixing up past and present; confused. I held her hand, traced the veins under the thin, wrinkled skin, touched the  deformed nail on her right hand little finger that once was trapped in the machinery of her winding frame in a cotton mill and never properly grew back..

And I knew there were hard family decisions to be made.

Mum at a family wedding ten years ago.

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Yesterday Mum went into residential care. At ninety three she’d lived in this house for sixty-one years.

Today will be the last time I write here; it felt as though it was a ritual I needed to go through. This is what I wrote.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emmeline Pankhurst – Deeds not Words

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Saddleworth Moors

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A long time ago I was told that the first rule in writing memoirs is to be truthful. It’s the only way. To tell your own particular truth, what you see and have seen, what you know and have known. And because you need to hold, and own, your own particular truth., to find your own voice, one that suits the story you have to tell.

So, if I wanted to write about my childhood,, about myself within my family, how would I do it? As a child, to observe the world around me with a child’s eyes? Or as an adult, looking back, remembering a distant past?

It took me many years to write the poem below. Because that’s when I felt safe to bring back the memory; the fear we had at the time. The years when it was happening. When the moors I’d loved – Saddleworth Moors – the moors I’d walked on, collecting peat with my parents for the garden (at a time when it was legal to do so) … became an evil place.

 

 

 

 

 

Missing on Saddleworth Moors

Still missing.

Despite the changes

All remains the same.

Amongst the blackened heather,

The tufts of faded grass,

grey sheep huddle.

Yellow clouds

tarnish the translucence of winter light,

release rain.

Ghostly images – lines of figures

Struggle over uneven terrain,

silhouetted against the sky:

listening to the sighs.

In perpetual search.

Rain carries whispers of the missing

as it drains through Pennine peat.

Tracks of water move silently underground,

lurch from dark passages

into the open streams of summers,

dancing over rocks,

green with the film of watery years.

And the fear that flows

around crevices and stones

to reach the River Tame

sustains the whispers.

 

Despite the changes 

all remains the same.

 

c) Judith Barrow 

 ist Prize. Roundyhouse Poetry Magazine 2003

 

Why I’m an Embarrassing Parent

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Debbie Young's avatarDebbie Young's Writing Life

(Why my imminent book launch is an embarrassment to my daughter – a post originally written for the November issue of the Tetbury Advertiser)

New cover of Coming to Terms Revealing the new cover of the paperback edition, to be launched on 13 November

Mummy, I never gave you my permission to put my picture on the cover of a book!”

So said my daughter Laura when I showed her the proof copy of my latest book, “Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes”, to be launched in paperback this month to mark World Diabetes Day (14 November).

It’s a lovely photo that captured her unawares, looking characteristically dreamy, described by her doting grandpa as “St Laura”.

Now that Laura’s at secondary school, I’m probably on borrowed time for posting her photos online or for writing about her exploits in public. I’d hate to become an embarrassing parent – to which her retort would probably…

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