Elizabeth Baines

To Taurus bar last night for a leaving drink for Cathy Bolton, Commonword 's innovative and inspirational publisher, who will be sorely ...

Sometimes little things happen out of the blue that make you happy, a little reward for no extra work at all. Today: a sweet email from an I...

On Friday in the Guardian Zoe Williams wrote this: It's all very well calling Radio 4 drama inexplicably bad, but someone must be able ...

Talking of author readings , as I indicated on my other blog last wee k , the place for readings in Manchester now seems to be the Writing S...

The Guardian Arts Diary reports today on a bid by respected authors to support 'Britain's embattled independent bookshops' by ta...

According to Lulu.com's Titlescorer , the title of my forthcoming collection of stories, Balancing on the Edge of the World , gives it a...

Giles Foden writes in today's Guardian about the dangers of having one's fiction adapted for the screen. It's a funny business...

To Manchester Metropolitan University's Writing School last night for a great reading by tutor Simon Armitage, and on to the Kro2 Bar a...

So Salt asked me to provide some recent publicity photos PDQ. Oh, help. That dreadful process again. And my last photographer has moved awa...

On Tuesday the reading group met at Clare's house to discuss Jack Maggs by Peter Carey. Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang is ...

In December I wrote about the state of the short story and the fact that there were signs of a resurgence, with several small publishers be...

Not long after I wrote in November about the frustrating business of submitting my fringe-produced play O'Leary's Daughters to mai...

Who was I kidding ? This is just a different, new (for me) way of writing a play, I told myself, as I sat at my desk all January, and the pl...

An invitation from Ann French, textile conservator at the Whitworth Gallery (aka Ann of the reading group) to the opening last Friday of the...

In the wake of the recent debate about the failure of British theatres to value and nurture the individual visions of playwrights (in a cul...

Reading group come round again and in all that while there has been nothing writerly to blog about. After the Christmas distractions I have...

Reading group on Tuesday night at Doug's. He had a beautiful huge Christmas tree, tastefully decorated with red baubles and tiny white l...

Christmas Party at North West Playwrights last night. Nice red wine, a lovely Christmas tree with silver baubles and a room full of playwrig...

Famous blogger Norman Geras has invited me to contribute to his Writer's Choice series, where writers discuss books which have been impo...

You can't help wondering what literature, both written and potential, is lost through lack of outlets. Commenting recently on my other b...