Forget the turkey. (Poor thing – but that’s another theme altogether.) Forget the presents. Forget the dressing-up, the pomp, the nicely-laid table, and all the stress and expense leading up to this special day. There’s only one thing that really counts, and I’m sure everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving knows what it is. Yes, of course. [...]
I don’t know if my brother liked Pink Floyd, but in many ways, he was a crazy diamond. There was a lot I didn’t know about him. My half-brother, to be correct. I didn’t even know he existed until I was eighteen, when my father told me about the son he'd had to a previous [...]
My would-be father was murdered at the age of thirty. Peter Donald Fox, British journalist, shot dead on the beautiful island of Cyprus, the place where the goddess of love was born. But the terrorist who killed Peter was full of hate, not love. I don’t know what kind of gun he used, because the [...]
To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part… No doubt you recognise those timeless words. Perhaps you recited them at your wedding, or heard them recited at someone else’s wedding. But [...]
Probably everyone who’s reading this post will have experienced some kind of loss by now, whether it be for a beloved pet, a close relative, a friend, a partner, or another type of loss entirely. Like everything in life, there are various gradations of sorrow. I was eighteen when my grandmother died. It was a [...]
The lovely piece of artwork that I chose for this post is something I unexpectedly received from a reader of "Infinite Stranger". She messaged me to say that this is how she visualised the seaview bedroom of my protagonist, Leah Cavanagh, who lives with her single mother in Lyneham-on-Sea, on the western coast of Lancashire. [...]
‘Nearly everything that happens to you in life you forget. Should have kept a journal.’ I came across those words while reading Ian McEwan’s latest novel, ‘Lessons’, and they lifted my mid-winter spirits astronomically. Why? Because keeping a journal is at least one New Year’s Resolution I don’t have to worry about, seeing as I’ve [...]
Wendy Skorupski 