Event review: the Rocky Outcrop Writers Tour for #nzbookmonth

March is NZ Book Month; discounts on books! Events across New Zealand! Lots of news about books! Hoorah!

Last night I headed across the parched plains of the mighty Wairarapa to the great Hedley’s Bookshop in Masterton for first stop of the Rocky Outcrop Writer’s Tour. Few of the audience wore socks; many of the women wore floral tops – it was Wairarapa summer at its best with the event following suit. Warm. Relaxed. Inviting. Genuine.

Pat White

“Absolute crackers,” is how local writer and MC Pat White introduced Ashleigh Young, Kirsten McDougall and Pip Adam.

“These three women would be in the leading taxi off the rank of young New Zealand writers.” It was a charm and genuine enthusiasm that buoyed us along one of the most enjoyable events I’ve been to.

Kirsten McDougall opened the show reading from her book The Invisible Rider. Neither a novel or a book of short stories, she described her work as ‘episodes’ in her character Phillip’s life. As she read Phillip’s encounter with dickhead Dad Pedro at their sons’ soccer game we all sat immersed. We were there on the sidelines, frustrated too, leaning in to hear what would happen next… the rip of laughter from the women in the front row when Kirsten her character Phillip called Pedro a fuck-knuckle was an audible release of tension for us all.

“Every so often a character in a book acts as if you might have if you had of been quick enough to think of it yourself,” said Pat.

Kirsten McDougall

Pip Adam read from her award-winning work Everything We Hoped For, a book of short stories with a heavy dose of real-life inspiration. Poet Helen Lehndorf has described Pip’s work as ‘a kind of post-post modern fiction – nothing meta, no irony, no narrative arc, no insights or character transformations – the stories are flatline and searing and real’.

Pip herself mentioned someone had once asked her dead-pan whether she was a psychopath – her stories are often grim, harsh and real and it’s difficult to imagine them being imagined.

During question time Pip spoke of her process of writing and her childhood; where television and gossip loomed large, which meant her world was often one of pretend and make-believe (what the neighbours are up to, the stories on the television) and daydreams (what would it be like to be David Bowie’s niece?)

As a mother she often composed the stories and character developments in Everything We Hoped For first in her head because the time she could actually sit and write was so condensed with a young child. The way she spoke about her process was compelling; I wanted to immediately read her book again.

Pip Adam

Ashleigh Young read from what Pat called, “Just one of the best books of poetry put out by a New Zealander in years.” Her work, Magnificent Moon, is her first book and was published by Victoria University Press last year.

Quantam Leaps, The Rest is Easy and a new sonnet were on the bill last night. However, I could sit and listen to Ashleigh read for a lot longer than she did, which is the mark of a good event – it seemed short and wonderful and I wanted more.

A couple of people I know have fan-girl level worship thoughts about the work of Ashleigh Young and it was easy to see why. Pat summed it up like this, “As another poet I think ‘oh bugger I wanted to do that.’”

Ashleigh Young

Lucky for you, Hedley’s was the first stop on a tour around the provinces so Palmerston North, Napier, Whanganui and Paekakariki you’re in luck!

Seek this event out – I loved it. The writing was the best there is, Pat’s hosting was pitch perfect and combined with David Hedley’s rampant enthusiasm for books and reading it was a jolly good night out.

Written by Emma McCleary, Web Editor for Booksellers NZ.

Summer readin’ had me a blast*

I’ve returned to work today… ripped away from my sunny reading spots and casual naps and thrust back into a world of people and noise and oh so many books.

This is an exciting time of year – there’s at least six packages of books on my desk waiting to be opened and reviewed. Catalogues are being emailed and posted with abandon and the promise of great reads in 2013 is enthralling. Not to mention the Booksellers Tokens I have burning a hole in my pocket…

What new books are you looking forward to in 2013? I’ve got Ruth Ozeki and Janet Frame and Marisha Pessl on my mind. I feel the need for new books having spent summer reading through some of the pile beside my bed. Let me know in the comments what you’re looking forward to.

Here’s what I read over summer – you might like them too:

Edwin + Matilda by Laurence Fearnley
I discovered New Zealand author Laurence Fearnley through her novel The Hut Builder. Both these books were five-star reads for me: Edwin + Matilda was incredibly readable, heart-breaking and entirely gripping. Afterwards I felt like I’d been winded. A great New Zealand romance that is wonderful as well as bleak – and boy does Laurence Fearnley write the South Island well.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
My first Murakami – a fresh, contemporary read (despite being written in 1987) about the heady 1960s and the importance, tragedy and lasting effect of personal relationships. If you’re a fan of contemporary fiction then read this – especially read this if you’ve never read Murakami before because from all accounts this is a good book to start with.

Red Rocks by Rachael King
A brilliant, captivating story from start to finish. I loved the setting, the characters and the story and became totally engrossed in the tale of the selkies. Although I’m a good 25 years older than Jake – the main character – this never mattered. The language was simple and easy to follow but never talked down to the reader, who you’d assume to most likely be a child.

A brilliant recommendation for adults and kids - particularly those who like adventure and loved Maurice Gee’s Under the Mountain.

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright
An easy read-along book that was well-written with characters you’ll feel absolutely nothing for.

A Room with a View by EM Forster
This was our summer read – an achingly romantic read with a rather dull middle. All was forgiven by the third quarter as I was entirely taken away to Italy and the woes and wants of the upper-middle class and the unthinkable act of marrying beneath yourself.

*With apologies for the title to Summer Lovin’ for an appalling rip-off of their song lyrics…

by Emma McCleary, Web Editor at Booksellers NZ

Good Kiwi book buyers support their local bookshop

There are at least two types of book buyer in New Zealand. Those that get their books when they want them from their local bookshop, supporting the local and national economies and those that have to wait because they have not arrived from the overseas book retailer and then complain about it – as seen in recent media reports.

It’s the local book buyer that we want to thank for their support in a tough year for booksellers.

Well, to be frank it’s been a tough year, economically at least, for almost everyone. And yes, some books can be bought more cheaply from overseas retailers such as The Book Depository and Amazon.

Some buyers from overseas retailers retort that it’s not so much the price but the convenience of being able to buy online. Try telling that to Carole Beu of The Women’s Bookshop in Ponsonby Road and most other booksellers, and they will point to the 24/7 convenience of their websites, which very often will include free shipping anywhere in the country.

You may still get the book 15% cheaper from overseas because of course you don’t pay GST on overseas online purchases valued less than $400. But that just means that if you buy from overseas you are avoiding contributing to Government expenditure on everything from pot holes in your roads to new hospital facilities. In effect those people who do that are ripping off themselves, their families and friends. (Mind you that’s the government’s fault for not applying the so-called universal goods and service tax universally – but we are working on that).

No, it’s the supporters of local businesses that we want to thank.

Every time they bought a book from their local bookshop they kept money in the local community, helped create and sustain jobs, helped the environment (less of a carbon footprint).

Local booksellers know their community and support their community charities and endeavours. Bookshop owners are entrepreneurial and work hard to give their customers what they need (even when sometimes the book buyer only knows the colour of the book cover they are looking for!).

For many, bookshops in cities and local communities are a destination; Dunedin-ites love to show off their famous University Bookshop in Great King Street. Scorpio Books in Christchurch showed great resilience and sense of service to their customers, when, having been destroyed by the earthquakes, they not only re-opened a store quickly in Riccarton but then moved back into the city centre in the eye catching Re:START Mall.

Paper Plus in Cromwell provides many extra services to their community and Page & Blackmore in Nelson will deliver your purchase in Nelson on a good old-fashioned grocer’s bike. Unity and Whitcoulls in Wellington have invested heavily this year to turn their stores into great attractions and Time Out BookStore in Mount Eden, Auckland has its own special, feline, attractions.

And none of this would be so if the good Kiwi book lovers didn’t support their local.

by Lincoln Gould, CEO of Booksellers NZ

E-books and the New Zealand Post Book Awards: discuss

E-books are a new area for the New Zealand Post Book Awards (NZPBA) and the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards (NZPCBA). We’re keen to accept entries for books whether they are e-book or print, and we’re receiving good questions from e-book publishers about how to do this and what’s eligible.

The mechanics of submitting the e-book are still a work in progress, but we’d like to work with e-book publishers to make it happen. Some e-books will be digitally locked so an option for submission may be to supply us with a credit for purchasing the e-books online for our judges. Other works may be supplied in an appropriate file format; we’d be keen to hear from you what you think might suit.

The eligibility criteria for both NZPBA and NZPCBA often refer to print books being widely available for sale to retail book shops. As the forms are already in use, we’ll leave them as they are, but we’ll be flexible when applying the rules to e-books.

The background is that the books should be widely available to the bookselling trade and to the New Zealand public. With that in mind, we’d like e-books to be available from two or more of the leading online retailers if they are not nationally for sale in print.

For the 2013 awards, e-books will be judged alongside print books in existing categories. It is a good point for discussion and we welcome your views in the comments below. We’re keen to take your feedback into account so that the Book Awards Governance Group (BAGG) can review the types of e-book submissions we receive and make sure the awards reflect the developments in the industry.

by Amie Lightbourne, Awards Manager for Booksellers NZ

Books to break your heart

We all know that every year – and probably any day now – book lists begin to appear. Christmas is book list central; ideas for Mum, Dad, the cat, the babysitter, that friend you don’t really like anymore but still feel compelled to buy for…

A while back on Twitter someone posted one of those “100 books you should have read if you’ve got any part of a brain” lists. So I decided (along with some online friends) to create our own lists. With titles that we liked. (We mainly decided this because we hadn’t read many books on THE LIST).

My plan is make the final lists available in the lead-up to Christmas as a more conceptually tangential guide to buying books*.  Add your own contributions to this and all the lists.

Here’s our books to break your heart list … 

• The Last of the Just, Andre Schwarz-Bart
• A Grief Observed, CS Lewis
• The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
• Unless, Carol Shields
• How I Live Now, Meg Rosoff
• Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves
• The Border Trilogy, Cormac McCarthy
• Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey
• Paula, Isabel Allende

*We recommend that if you want a really good recommendation that is suitable to the person you want to buy for then you get in-store and talk to bookshop staff.

by Emma McCleary, web editor at Booksellers NZ

Publisher’s Promise – Does anyone ever really return the book?

Hachette runs a scheme called Publisher’s Promise, which stickers certain books with the guarantee, “Love this book or your money back.” We asked them if anyone ever takes them up on that promise…  

We regularly receive responses from readers about our Publisher’s Promise titles, and I always look forward to reading the good and the bad. People often feel deeply about the books they read, one way or another, and they like to share these opinions. The feedback we’ve received over the years has varied greatly from letters of praise to hate, and sometimes disappointment.

It’s never possible to please every reader out there, but we try to choose books we believe will appeal to a large audience of readers. So when a letter that comes in from a reader who didn’t enjoy the title, we take their feedback under consideration and refund their money. Oddly enough, several letters have been written over the years about the apathy people have felt toward the book they read. How they thought the book was fine, but not as fantastic as they thought it should be. Just as people feel strongly about the books they love or hate, they feel equally disappointed when a book doesn’t make them feel strongly at all. However, we always refund the purchase price of the book if a reader is unsatisfied.

The letters that tell us how much they love our books are my favourite because I get to take the feedback about why they loved it and send them another book I think they’ll love just as much. As you can imagine, at Hachette NZ we’re very enthusiastic about books, and getting to share the books we love the most with others is incredibly rewarding. The positive letters are also great because they help us hone in on what appealed to the reader. Was the appeal what we thought it would be? Do we have something else coming up that has these shared elements? This promotion is created with the reader in mind, and we want to help them sort through the books out there on the shelves and help them find something they will truly enjoy.

I would say if you’re unsure of what to read next, the Publisher’s Promise promotion really gives you a risk-free situation. Whether you love it or hate it, you will either have a new book to read that you will most likely also enjoy, or your money back. What could be better?

By Candice Vallimont, Hachette NZ

Love! Magic! Zombies! A blog post in bullet points #writersandreadersnz

Blogging about Writers & Readers: Kelly Link, Denise Mina and Robert Shearman: Comics, Fantasy & Popular Culture.
Chaired by Dylan Horrocks.
Wednesday 14 March. 3.30pm, The Embassy

This was my favourite of the three events I’ve been to see so far this year. Dylan Horrocks in conversation with Kelly Link (short story writer and editor of anthologies,) Robert Sherman (writer of books with subjects diverse as the entire history of human civilization, a man who falls in love with the talking ghost of Hitler’s childhood pet dog, and critical essays on the X-files,) and Denise Mina, author of detective novels and writer of Hellblazer for a year. Like any good panel discussion, the conversation jumped all over the place, so I’m writing a blog post in bullet points to save myself the difficulty of having to tie it up neatly. So, in no order of importance:

- Robert Shearman talked about the fact that whatever he did in his writing career, he would still never do anything more famous than Dr Who. He is doomed to be haunted by it all his life, and says when he dies they’ll probably put a Dalek on his headstone. “Robert Shearman. He was exterminated,” says Dylan Horrocks. But Robert Shearman says it’s humbling to be part of something with such an enormous history.

- As a child, Kelly Link had a pet boa constrictor called Baby she used to bring to school, wrapped around one leg. It usually didn’t escape.

- Denise Mina said she had only had her website up for a day when she was approached to write Hellblazer. She sent DC comics back an e-mail telling them to fuck off because she thought it was a joke.

She says writing comics feels like a physically different experience to writing fiction, and that she thinks the paneling restrictions of a syndicated comic make the experience of writing somewhat similar to that of a haiku or a sonnet. She said a lot of fans were unhappy with a woman writing Hellblazer, because they thought she’d change the character (“and make him drink herbal tea,” says Mina.)

- Robert Sherman talked about writing fantasy, (or ‘the fantastic,’) and described a story he had written where Luxembourg suddenly vanishes overnight. Nobody cares, except for a woman whose husband has gone there on a business trip. He says that he likes to write stories with a reverse twist – to start out with the fantastic and work backwards from there. Rather than ending with a twist, he thinks it’s more startling to begin with an improbable situation, and them slowly narrow in. This way, you can start with some good jokes at the expense of Luxembourg, but then you can add emotional depth, which makes for a much stranger and more compelling story.

- Denise Mina is often told that her work ‘transcends genre,’ which makes her mad. She said that it’s all part of that low/high art distinction, and when people tell her that her books ‘transcend’ crime fiction, it’s the literary equivalent of someone saying ‘you’re not that ugly.’

She always makes a point of saying she writes comics and detective books, not graphic novels or thrillers. Kelly things that ‘transcending genre,’ is a way of people trying to ‘dignify’ the fact they enjoyed reading a piece of genre fiction. But she also says that snobbery goes both ways, and she’s been told by genre writers that her work doesn’t belong in sci fi. She says it’s important to remember that genre is first and foremost a marketing tool.

- A member of the audience asked Robert Shearman (who was an obsessive fan of Dr Who since childhood) whether he considers himself to be a fan-fic writer. He said that did, but he thought that fan fiction was an intelligent and creative solution to any issues an audience might have with an episode of a show they loved (he mentioned sexism and representation.)

There was lots of other amazing stuff discussed, but it’s disappeared into the black hole of my brain. Denise Mina told a hilarious story about the most irritating man she’s ever met on the plane, (who claimed to be a writer and first introduced himself to her by saying ‘an Irish lass was she,’) but I’ve never been a good joke teller, and if I try to put it down on paper it will bomb. I got my book signed by Kelly Link and she drew a picture of what’s either a dinosaur, or a spiky wolf. Here it is:

by Hera Bird, Administrator at Booksellers NZ and poet.

Emerging Writers in Masterton #writersandreadersnz

Blogging about Writers & Readers: Emerging Writers
Monday 12 March 12.30pm, Aratoi, Masterton

I’ve never been to a big-city Writers & Readers event so I don’t know what I’m missing out on although Twitter tells me they have floral arrangements.

Sounds fancy.

Driving to Masterton yesterday I listened to a piece on Radio NZ about the recently-announced proposed staff cuts at MFAT, which was described as having ‘a sophisticated work force.’

Sophisticated is a word that creeps me out and instantly makes me feel inadequate. A bit dorky, parochial, regionalist … more my kind of words.

I was right at home at the Masterton run of Emerging Writers. We sat in a wonderful old chapel within Aratoi Museum surrounded by art of the region; people came in quietly and without gusto and the chair (David Hedley of the wonderful Hedley’s bookshop) called people by name when they wanted to ask a question. That, the polite reverence of the audience, the couple of husbands who’d clearly been dragged along (there’s always at least one at Wairarapa events) and David’s reference to Eleanor Catton being a ‘young lady’ gave this an air of a warm family event.

I kind of felt we should have been sitting on mismatched sofas with tea and shortbread.

Hamish Clayton (Wulf), Craig Cliff (A Man Melting) and Eleanor Catton (The Rehearsal) were on the bill – talking about their work as ‘emerging writers.’ Given their string of awards and accomplishments I did wonder when they could shuck off that mantle although as Hamish Clayton pointed out they were still ‘new’ enough to have had the good grace to read each other’s work before appearing together.

As Hamish Clayton spoke about developing his work it struck me that what he was really speaking about was being open to opportunity. Wulf began in a way from a friend’s off-hand remark about a much-loved poem (Wulf and Eadwacer) needing to be made into a novel… the Wulf from a walk in the Botanic Gardens at dusk where shadows and tree stumps create their own characters. Opportunity and seeing the familiar in new ways: not trying to develop a new voice for Te Rauparaha; picking up the New Zealand landscape as a central character instead.

Eleanor Catton’s The Rehearsal began life as a dramatic monologue for a friend (side note writers: make friends with people – it will help your career), which was put away unfinished, then pulled out when Catton was looking for submission material for her application to IIML.

Catton treated the book’s development like she was writing a play and ‘playing roles’ continued as a key theme. As she tells it, just like a theatrical performance “sometimes you’re privileged to see inside the characters heads, other times you just see their actions.”

Asked about her time in Iowa she said she realised while there that our writers have an enormous freedom in what they’re doing.

“New Zealanders aren’t trying to pose and ‘be a writer’, they’re just doing it.

“We have literary heroes but don’t feel the need to carry them on our shoulders. After all, who on earth could be Janet Frame?”

Craig Cliff used to be all the about the numbers and the spreadsheets: writing more than 800,000 words in 2008, using Excel to work out correlating themes in his short stories to develop the evolutionary chain running through A Man Melting.

He says that while publishers were reluctant to take short stories when he was approaching them, “short stories are in ruddy health at the moment.”

He cites Pip Adam, Tina Makeriti and Alice Tawhai as short story writers to read.

“You can fit a short story collection into your life.” A longer story at lunchtime, a quick one on the bus to work…

These days he’s more a 100-200 words a day guy; working on his third novel (he’s thankful that the first two won’t see the light of day) he’s setting it in the past and trying to carve out a niche that is different.

Footnote: You often see in affluent towns and suburbs (Greytown, Thorndon) little footpath bowls of water for thirsty dogs. I suggest a similar scenario for Writers & Readers events where the age of the audience is in the cough-prone demographic (60+)… sponsored water bottles at events would add a new marketing angle and put a stop to the regularly fits of dry-throat-coughing that regularly disturbed this event.

by Emma McCleary, Web Editor at Booksellers NZ

IMAGE:  L-R Hamish Clayton, Craig Cliff and Eleanor Catton from the Writers & Readers website

Kelly Link: Fantasy and Magic Realism #writersandreadersnz

Blogging about Writers & Readers:  Fantasy and Magic Realism
Monday 12 March 12.30pm,  The Embassy

If you’ve ever read anything by Kelly Link before, you’ll know she’s interested in the business of being dead. I don’t know what percentage of her stories feature some kind of reanimated corpse, but it’s definitely high.

At the Writers & Readers session Kelly Link read an excerpt from one of her stories about a boy who digs up the corpse of his girlfriend, who is pissed off at being exhumed and follows him around for the rest of the story. When asked why she had so much interest in the undead, Kelly Link said she had a friend who’s job it was to clear out the houses of dead people for a living. These people were usually hoarders, and it was his job to sift through their rubbish. At this point, I was pretty sure her story was going to involve one of the aforementioned dead people coming back from the grave to avenge the disposal of all their stuff, but it turned out her friend just salvaged a lot of old zombie movies, which they watched together. (Do old people really hoard zombie movies?)

She also said she read a lot of ghost stories as a kid, which terrified her. Her parents eventually gave her an ultimatum. Either she had to stop waking them up in the middle of the night, or she had to stop reading the stories. No prizes for guessing which she chose.

But Kelly Link says she’s always careful not to reveal too much about the dead. She talked about her experience teaching a class of college kids who weren’t into reading. She said that the thing that the kids were most interested to find out was whether the characters in their books were good people or bad people, and whether good things or bad things happen to them at the end. She said this was frustrating for her, and one of the things she now tries to do is write stories where that question is never easy to answer, but the stories are so entertaining that people have to keep reading them regardless.

In describing Kelly Link, people often start by talking about genre. Her Wikipedia page describes her work as “slipstream or magic realism: a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery and realism.” I’d personally add a bit of fairy tale and black comedy to that list.

I usually don’t like talking about genre because it’s pretty unhelpful most of the time (unless you’re trying to shelve something,) but Kelly Link is totally untroubled by being categorized – after working in a bookstore for years she understands the importance of finding the right readers, and she said she’s learned to enjoy the experience. She’s even hilariously had calls from people who have discovered her book “Magic for Beginners” in the non fiction/ occult section of their local bookstore.

But one of the perks of being so hard to pin down is that nobody knows exactly what to expect from your books.

All the usual expectations of genre are out the window. I like Kelly’s work because it’s surprising and funny and she’s never afraid to take risks, or throw a couple of werewolves into the mix.

Even her writing style is unorthodox. She talked about how she often writes sitting at a table with Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, (two famous YA/fantasy authors,) and when any of them get stuck, they just pass their laptop over, and someone else will work on it instead. She said the key to being a good editor is not to try and turn someone else’s work into your own, but to really think about what they’re trying to achieve, and go from there.That’s one of the things I like about Kelly Link. She works collaboratively with her writing community.

Before she was widely published, she created a zine with her husband called “Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet,” publishing work by writers that kind of fell between the cracks of genre. She’s also currently involved in republishing novels by favourite science fiction and fantasy authors that have been out of print for years. One of her first books, ‘Magic for Beginners,” is available as an –e-book for free download on her website: http://kellylink.net/

by Hera Bird, Administrator at Booksellers NZ and poet

IMAGE: Kelly Link from the Writers & Readers website

We won’t be the last readers of real books #writersandreaders

Blogging about Writers & Readers: Are we the last real book readers? 
Monday 12 March 12.30pm, Downstage Theatre

“Frock-up and adapt” and we won’t be the last readers of real books. That seemed to be the message from yet another book festival session looking at the future of the book as part of the current New Zealand International Festival Writers and Readers Week.

While the subject is somewhat worn, the packed Downstage Theatre for the Monday lunchtime event was testimony not only to the interest readers have in the doomsday subject as we seemingly face the Armageddon to be wrought by digitisation but also to the attraction of the three erudite panellists managed expertly by Radio New Zealand’s Kathryn Ryan.

Scottish novelist, Denise Mina sees digitisation as “liberation”, providing the opportunity for many new stories to be told, while Victoria University Press Publisher, Fergus Barrowman probably didn’t mean to be quite as gloomy about the printed book as he sounded: books will be still around in the future just as there are horses.

Unity Bookshop’s Tilly Lloyd spoke of fear of “the death of the street” but that booksellers would adapt.

“Adaption” seemed to be the word of the moment with thoughts that digital books and e-readers while not yet perfect were “good enough” and the reading experience was “good enough” to ensure that the e-reading would be a major factor in the book readers’ future.

There were interesting insights into how digitisation was changing the business of publishing. Denise rocked the theatre with laughter as she described the changes digitisation was bringing to the stuffy, class ridden publishing classes of London.

Often these sessions focus on the risk to booksellers but Fergus was quite clear about the drop in output from at least his publishing house. But e-book publishing did not seem to be providing him with a substitution: “we have been in e-books for 18 months and sold very few”.

Of course this may be because there is not a universal e-book selling infrastructure in New Zealand at present but Tilly made the point that that was coming “and we are frocked up”.
New business models were discussed and I am left wondering whether Tilly, having the last word, slipped out a trade secret of how Unity was adapting as the streets lose all their retail shop-fronts to digital except that is, “for bars.” But she said there would be one bar in the street that sells books . Unity Book Bar sounds like a good name for an adapted business model..

by Lincoln Gould, CEO at Booksellers NZ

IMAGE: left to right: Fergus Barrowman, Tilly Lloyd, Denise Mina from the Writers & Readers website