Moment of Despair by Jenny Falcon

Posted on May 8, 2016 by Margaret Graham

I know nothing of their lives

They know nothing of mine

I can try to imagine

They cannot even begin……

Big, beautiful beseeching eyes

Searching for comfort

Yearning without knowing it

For a life they will never have

Not without the love of parents,

Struggling to keep them alive

Beyond indignation, too tired

To question their destiny

Too hot, too cold, too hungry

No strength to play, to laugh

Just misery is the norm

How can this be? – what shame

Completely helpless I observe

Desperate to end their pain

Knowing with grim certainty

It would take a miracle

As Western life envelops

I know it can’t be right

The help that is in place

Will never ever be enough

I want to see them smile

Not in a newsreel pose

But with the joy of a child

Carefree, hopeful, cherished

I want them all to know

They have done nothing wrong

The world does not condemn

Their fragile innocence

Under Italian Skies by Nicky Pellegrino Reviewed by Jan Speedie

Posted on May 7, 2016 by Margaret Graham

It’s that time of year when thoughts turn to summer holidays. Nicky Pellegrino novel, Under Itlaian Skies y will surely put Southern Italy on your list of places to visit. Relax and let Nicky transport you there.
For the past 25 years Stella has worked for Milly Munro in her fashion business. Milly’s untimely death throws Stella’s well controlled life into confusion. At 49, Stella wonders what her future holds.
Following a chat with her friend, Birdie, Stella investigates the idea of a house swap to bring some changes to her life. Soon she swaps her small London flat for a beautiful old villa in Southern Italy (who wouldn’t).
At first it is very strange and a little lonely but as her confidence grows she makes friends in the village and so the fun begins.
Nicky Pellegrino has once again written a delightful, sensitive and fun story. It is clear she has a real love for Italy, so join her in her passion, immerse yourself in Italian village life.
Nicky Pellegrino now lives and works as a freelance journalist in New Zealand. She was born and brought up in Liverpool. Her father was Italian and they spent all their family holidays visiting Southern Italy. Her books are distributed in the UK, Australia and New Zealand and have been translated into 12 languages.

Published by Orion Publishing Group on 14th April 2016 at £12.99

Submissions Now Open For The 9th Luke Bitmead Writer’s Bursary

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Catherine Balavage

We know a lot of writers read Frost so we wanted to bring this great competition to your attention. Submissions for the 2016 Luke Bitmead Writer’s Bursary are now open.

The award was set up shortly after Luke’s death in 2006 by his family to support and encourage the work of fledgling novel writers and the Bursary is now the UK’s biggest award for unpublished authors. The top prize is a publishing contract with Legend Press and a £2,500 cash prize.

Luke Bitmead was the first novelist to be published by Legend Press, his novel White Summer was released in 2006 shortly before his death. Two novels have been published posthumously – The Body is a Temple and Heading South (co-authored by Catherine Richards). Information about Luke can be found at www.lukebitmead.com.
This fantastic bursary for a ninth year, and hope to continue the success of our previous winners Andrew Blackman (On the Holloway Road), Ruth Dugdall (The Woman Before Me), Sophie Duffy (The Generation Game), J.R. Crook (Sleeping Patterns,) Joanne Graham (Lacey’s House), Jo Gatford (White Lies), Tara Guha (Untouchable Things) and Lyn G. Farrell (The Wacky Man) published today 2nd May 2016.

Only adult fiction is eligible for this bursary, no children’s books or non-fiction.

Tom Chalmers, Legend Press MD comments ‘We are delighted to be continuing this brilliant bursary for the ninth year. The prize is a fantastic way to find new, undiscovered writing talent, and we have found some of our most exciting authors through the prize. Luke was an amazingly talented young author, and it is an honour to be continuing the prize in his name.’

Submissions from writers will be accepted from Monday 2nd May until Friday 15th July 2016.

For information about how to enter visit: http://www.legendtimesgroup.co.uk/legend-press/365-luke-bitmead-bursary

“Obama Out” President Obama Makes Brilliant Final White House Correspondents’ Dinner Speech

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Catherine Balavage

Everyone who knows me knows I am a huge President Obama fan. I have read his books and I enjoy his speeches. I think he is the best President of my lifetime so far: progressive, intelligent, compassionate, witty, moral and articulate. Obama will be sorely missed and his speech at his final White House Correspondents’ dinner did not help. From the mic drop to the jokes, it was perfection. Goodbye Obama, I will miss you.

Surreal? Probably, but it’s my life Alex Bannard – Bangkok correspondent

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Margaret Graham

Being an expat affords some amazing experiences, luxuries and some frustrations. In a previous expat life I had friends who described it as ‘not real life’ – it is real, it’s our life right now, surreal though it might sometimes be.

Take a typical moment in time in Bangkok. I was invited to join a friend in her first ante-natal appointment for her fourth pregnancy. Hubby felt his role was done so it was my privilege to share a wonderful moment with her and to have some fun too. Afterwards we were waiting outside for a taxi to go to lunch. I say waiting, we actually got proactive and went straight to the area where they are dropping off to pick one up.

‘We were met with, ‘No madam you go get number, please’.

There’s a system. Wow.

We went to the taxi desk & got number 49. There are many people milling around and obviously we don’t expect to get in the first taxi. Several minutes later a lady with number 52 clutched in her palm was clearly edging to the front of the ‘queue’…there is no queue just a mass of people.

I don’t really like pointless rules but if there is a system, queue or not – you wait your turn lady or I will take you down. I’m British after all, and we invented the queue.

Realizing we probably needed to register with Clipboard-lady I told her our destination & she wrote it next to 49. We’re back in the game. Number 52 can wait in line.

After many more minutes it became apparent that the system is not a system.

Clipboard-lady approached the next available taxi and gave him a range of options on which location he wanted next, which often he declined & drove off. Oh for goodness sake -it’s 37 degrees humid as a Chinese Laundry we’ve be waiting for almost 1/2 hour, my friend is in wedges and I am watching my long awaited Dean & Delucalunch disappear up the ‘system’.

So I took things into my own hands & walked down the line and asked a taxi way back in the taxi queue if he will take us to Emporium. ‘Madam, number?’ he said.

I replied, ‘We have a number but there is seriously no system. Taxi just choose where he wants to go. You want to go to Emporium?’

‘Ok but 100bht’

‘Done.’ We jumped in with our laminated 49 (stick that in your ‘system’) and drive off.

The traffic is horrible. We pass a Dean & Deluca and get stuck in a nose to tail traffic, so I hand him his 100bht & say ‘Kap kun ka we get out here.’

‘No madam. Just round corner.’ He replies.

‘Oh ok’

Finally we pull up at…Central Embassy. Not quite where we wanted to be.

Yep, surreal it is. But we love it.

Stop Talking Start Doing Action Book By Sháá Wasmund MBE Book Review

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Catherine Balavage

In 2013 I very briefly met Sháá at a How to Create A Non-Fiction Bestseller seminar at RADA. Sháá was great during the seminar, giving lots of advice and getting good answers out of the publishers who were there. Despite everyone in the room wanting to talk to Sháá she took some time out to acknowledge me. I always remembered her courteousness and generosity. She has charisma and talent in spades. When I got the press release for her new book I jumped at the chance to do a review.

This book works for a number of reasons: it can be read in one sitting (as I did), it has practical tools and exercises to do throughout the book, it has inspiring quotes, and the book is well structured. It allows you to take one step and then another. By the end, who knows what you will have achieved? The book gives you a kick in the pants while removing all of the excuses you make to yourself. It also takes advice from other self help writers and either expands on them or uses them to make a point. All in all this is a great inspirational book which helps you get your butt into gear. I wasn’t disappointed.

Stop Talking, Start Doing Action Book: Practical Tools and Exercises to Give You a Kick in the Pants is available here.

Stop Talking, Start Doing Action Book

Practical tools and exercises to give you a kick in the pants

By Sháá Wasmund MBE

Published by Capstone.

Paperback original and e-book, £9.99

ISBN: 9780857086860

New book shows how to apply an entrepreneurial spirit to life

The Stop Talking, Start Doing Action Book is a motivational kick in the pants for anyone who has an itch to try something new or feels that there must be more to life. Encouraging people to face their fears, it helps readers identify their personal starting point and develop a plan to reach their goals.

Stop Talking, Start Doing Action Book is written by bestselling author and leading businesswoman, Sháá Wasmund. Awarded an MBE in 2015 for her services to business and enterprise, she helps readers apply an entrepreneurial spirit to achieve more and gain greater fulfilment from life.

Whether readers want to ditch their partner, seek a promotion, renovate their house, write a book, or start travelling, the Action Book demonstrates how to find the inspiration, self-discipline and confidence to move from talking to doing.

“As time roars past our ears we drift, deliberate, doubt and take ourselves too seriously” says Shaa. “But there’s never been a better time to start something. Now more than ever we live in a world of opportunity.”

A follow-up to the bestselling Stop Talking Start Doing (Wiley, 2011), the Action Book includes new tools and exercises to support readers who want to put their ideas into motion.

About the author:

Sháá Wasmund is a graduate of The London School of Economics. Her entrepreneurial career had an unusual start. At 22 she won a competition to interview Super Middleweight boxing champ Chris Eubank and ended up helping to promote his next fight to a sell-out 48,000 live crowd and an 18 million TV audience. Sháá remains an ardent boxing fan.

Shortly after she set up her own PR and marketing company and won the then relatively unknown vacuum cleaner company Dyson as one of her first clients. Working alongside Sir James Dyson helping to establish Dyson as a global brand taught Sháá more about business than any MBA. To this day, Sháá credits James as being one her biggest sources of inspiration.

Sháá’s love affair with the Internet began after she became a founding director in Sir Bob Geldof’s online travel company. A year later, Sháá raised substantial funds to launch mykindaplace.com an early social networking site. The company was later sold to BSkyB.

Sháá is an international bestselling author, prolific public speaker, digital native and passionate champion of small businesses. Amongst other accolades, Sháá has been voted by the Institute of Directors as one of the UK’s Most Connected Women.

In 2009 Sháá launched Smarta.com, the UK’s #1 Resource for Small Business. In 2011 Sháá launched ‘Smarta Business Builder’, a groundbreaking cloud-based toolkit for business.

In 2015, Sháá was presented with an MBE from the Queen for her ‘services to business and enterprise’ and published her second #1 bestseller Do Less, Get More: How To Work Smart and Live Life Your Way.

Sháá now runs business bootcamps, workshops and coaching programmes under her own brand, shaa.com. She has helped thousands of people monitize their passions and knowledge to build digital businesses they love.

She’s a regular guest on Sky Sunrise, reviewing the papers with Eamonn Holmes and now speaks on stages across the world, most recently sharing stages with Gary Veynerchuck and E-Myth legend Michael Gerber.

Follow Sháá: @Shaawasmund

Facebook: facebook.com/shaawasmund

Review: Travels With My Aunt – new musical opens Chichester’s 2016 season

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Vicky Edwards

Travels With My Aunt
Minerva Theatre, Chichester

Photo:Tristram Kenton

When retired bank manager Henry Pulling attends his mother’s funeral the idea of globetrotting couldn’t be further from his mind. But finding himself embroiled with his extraordinary Aunt Augusta, of whom prior to his mother’s send-off he knew nothing, the squarest bear that ever there was suddenly finds himself on an extraordinary international schlep.
Following where auntie leads, in quest of the mysterious Mr Visconti, Henry is soon hanging out with hookers, getting comprehensively searched by customs officials and smoking dope aboard the Orient Express with a hippy chick several years his junior. Travel certainly broadens his mind, but for a man better used to the tranquillity of the potting shed it’s all a bit too much of an eye opener.
Christopher Luscombe directs this new musical, based on Graham Greene’s novel, with pep and panache. The late 1960s setting is beautifully realised in Colin Falconer’s effective set and costume designs, aided and abetted by Nicholas Skilbeck’s orchestrations and choreography by Ewan Jones.
Patricia Hodge is on sparkling form as Aunt Augusta, a game and feisty aging beauty with the heart of an adventurer and an insatiable lust for life. If she is occasionally a tad stretched in the musical numbers, Ms Hodge is nevertheless impressively nifty in the dance stakes.
Steven Pacey as Henry is adorable. From nervous hiccupper who would do nothing more reckless than prune his prize dahlias with slightly blunt secateurs, his gradual blossoming is a joy to witness.
Haley Flaherty is in sweet voice as Tooley, the flowers-in-her-hair youngster who brings out Henry’s protective instinct and with it a tenderness he finds both unfamiliar and giddy-making.
Hugh Maynard as Wordsworth is infectiously ebullient (if somewhat clichéd) as Augusta’s toy boy, while Jack Chissick, Sebastien Torkia and Jonathan Dryden Taylor each bring their own gifts to this enchantingly bonkers family party, ably supported by a terrific ensemble.
The Minerva is the perfect space for summer froth and Travels With My Aunt is as elegant and effervescent as the champers being served in the Theatre’s newly renovated restaurant.
Until 4 June at the Minerva Theatre. www.cft.org.uk Box office: 01243 781312

The Daughter’s Secret by Eva Holland Reviewed by Frances Colville

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Margaret Graham

Surely a scenario which all mothers dread, the abduction of a child is the focus of this first novel by Eva Holland which won the 2014 Good Housekeeping novel competition. It’s an intriguing and emotional read, telling the story of Rosalind as she struggles to cope with the imminent release from prison of her teenage daughter’s abductor. Flashbacks to the time of the abduction six years earlier are skillfully interwoven with her current life and the reader soon becomes aware that both situations are far more complicated than they initially seem. Eva Holland is spot on with her characterisation and successfully maintains tension throughout. There are one or two annoyances (is so much snow realistic in Milton Keynes in late November/early December and in any case is it really necessary for the plot to work?) but they do not detract from the fact that this is a good story worth the read.

The Daughter’s Secret by Eva Holland is published in paperback and as an eBook.

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