Ghosts at the Gladstone

Ghosts at the Gladstone

Misha Herwin

On Saturday we held our annual reading café at the Gladstone, when local writers from a variety of writing groups come together share their stories, or extracts from their books. This year’s theme was “Ghosts at the Gladstone” and we had a great selection of chilling tales of spine tingling horror. Or in some cases amusing stories of Glaswegian ghosts, or Brummie ghost hunters, or Flo who accidentally spreads death wherever she goes.

On a grey, October day, the Gladstone was the perfect location for dimming the lights, drawing the blinds and letting yourself face the primal fears of darkness and death. Outside the windows, the solid bulk of the bottle kilns rose into a pewter sky; the wind beat and howled and sirens screeched.

Bring on Halloween!

Our readers, June Palmer, Debbi Voisey, Jan Edwards, Peter Coleborn, Nic Hale, Mick Walters, Margaret Moxon and Dawn Weeks. Front row, me…

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Not Junk – Just Yet to Find a Use #writing

I have had this pamphlet – The Story of Okewood Church – gathering dust in various draws and on selected shelves for the best part of 40 years. It is dated 1978 and for all I know this same booklet is still available in the tiny church described.

St Johns has had many ups and downs and was left to  rot and resurrected several times but has endured. It is a pretty church set in the woodlands of the Surrey/Sussex borders.  It is said there was a chapel n the site long before the church was built in 1220. Buily on the remnants of a roman building (villa or temple?), which in itself was thought to be the site of a druidic temple.

Whilst writing In Her Defence, the sequel to my crime novel Winter Downs,  I wanted to include a brief description of a really old village church – and Okewood does not come much older. As, indeed, is the pamphlet itself. It took me a while to find it – but The Story of Okewood Church: a Handbook for Pilgrims finally earned its place in my reference library.

Score one for the packrat who never throws anything away!

 

 

Shadows on the Grass by Misha M Herwin #blogtour #novel #newfiction

When Misha Herwin asked me to take part in her blog tour for Shadows on the Grass I was more than delighted.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It covers an awful lot of ground, not merely in time and space but also in the political and social issues.  And if that were not enough to keep me on the edge of your seat Misha also slides a time-slip element into the mix, which raises the tensions beyond the usual family saga.

With all that in mind I posed a few questions for Misha to enlarge upon.

JE: Tell us a little about yourself.

MH: I’m Misha Herwin and I write books for adults and for children. I’ve also written plays, which have been performed professionally, as well as in schools, and had a number of short stories published in various anthologies in the UK and US; including The Way to My Heart, Voices of Angels, The Darkest Midnight in December, The Yellow Room and Bitch Lit, among others.

Memories Are Not Always Made of This

This morning the author and editor Diana Athill was interviewed on the Today programme for her 100^th birthday. Happy Birthday to Ms Athill!

One of the things  that she mentioned was her first memory of falling into a puddle and being hauled out again. It set me musing on my own earliest memories. I can think of several, and because we moved house two weeks after my 4^th birthday I can accurately date myself as being three or even two years old at the time.

On Saturday 11th November – We Were All At the Gladstone Museum!

I spent Saturday afternoon compering the reading event at the Gladstone Museum in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent where a splendid array of writers were strutting their literary stuff, and a good time was had by all!

Daemons of Devil’s End launch

Launching a new book is always an occasion, especially when it involves meeting up with old friends. So travelling down to London on Friday 10^th November for the launch of the anthology The Daemons of Devil’s End (and the mirror twin Olive Hawthorne and the Daemons of Devil’s End) was always going to be a pleasure.

Spooky Reads special on 6Towns radio tomorrow! #radio #spookyreads #halloween #@sot2021

Tomorrow (saturday 28th Oct) between 4pm and 6pm will be Spooky Reads on the 6TownsRadio digital station’s 6Towns Radio Curtain Call Show hosted by Becs and Rob!

 

Reading our spooky tales and  chatting about fiction of the creepy kind – with music to suit – will be writers from the city of Stoke-on-Trent and beyond: Jan Edwards, Debbi Voisey, Jack Lee, June Palmer, Bev Adams, Misha Herwin and Jem Shaw.

Listen if you dare!