Hello booklovers,

It’s January again… the decorations are back in the loft and its is highly likely that some of us are wolfing down some beautiful new books received for Christmas. In light of the latest lockdown announcement, perhaps you are looking for some fresh literary inspiration. We have delved into our archives to cherry pick the works of some of the excellent authors who have graced our stage at previous festivals.

We’re starting off with our 2014 festival and have a delightful smorgasbord of fiction and non fiction for you to peruse at your leisure.

A Song of Their Own: the Fight for Votes for Women in Ipswich by Joy Bounds

Much of what we know about the movement for votes for women revolves around a handful of well known names. A Song of Their Own is a record of what women in and around Ipswich did to increase pressure on the Government to allow them to vote. In it, she explores the burning down of the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe just a hundred years ago, and the ensuing furore.

The Village by Nikita Lalwani

Set in a village modelled on a real-life open prison in India, The Village is a gripping story about manipulation and personal morality, about how truly frail our moral judgement can be.

William Brodrick’s ‘Father Anselm’ novels

William Brodrick’s hugely enjoyable crime series featuring his much loved character Father Anselm, a monk turned barrister, who seeks to bring justice beyond the reach of the law.

First World War: Still No End in Sight by Frank Furedi

A fascinating piece of non fiction which explores how, in many ways, World War One never truly ended.

A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie

A gripping story of friendship, love and betrayal, set to the backdrop of the First World War and a crumbling Empire.

My Life as a Hooker by Steven Gauge

My Life as a Hooker was shortlisted for the British Sports Book Awards 2014 and is about how local sports teams can bring a community together as well as help a middle-aged bloke avoid a  mid-life crisis.

Madame Mephisto by A. M. Bakalar

Meet Magda: a drug dealer new to living in the UK who will stop at nothing to expand her lucrative business… yet her family know nothing of this aspect of her life. Heart stopping and menacing, A. M. Bakalar’s first novel provides an interesting commentary on the lies we tell and the people we really are.

 

What a brilliant year 2014 was, with such a wide range of guests and interesting works brought to the table. We hope that our perusal through the 2014 festival archive has provided you with some ideas for some new books to try!

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

 

 

 

Hello booklovers,

It’s Christmas Eve! Sending you all lots of love and bookish thoughts during yet more odd times. I’m sure we’ll all agree that great solace has been found in reading this year – I intend to embrace this further going into the new year. I’m currently tingling in anticipation of which books may be waiting for me under the tree as I write…

Over the course of December we have delivered slices of festive cheer in the form of our Comfort and Joy blog series. Each week a variety of authors and other bookish folk have shared with us their Christmas traditions and musings, with the aim to provide some merry distractions and bring a bit of joy to the build up to a rather odd Christmas.

And so here we have a compilation of each entry for you to peruse, in the manner of a box of cherry liqueurs or marzipan fruits (or, for the Edmund Pevensies amongst us, Turkish Delight…), over the Christmas break.

Meg Reid, our festival director, shared with us her favourite Christmas books: Comfort and Joy with our Festival Director (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

Children’s author Sophie Green evoked the scent of Christmas: Comfort and Joy with Sophie Green (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

Biographer Nick Holland brought to life Christmas as the Brontë parsonage: Comfort and Joy with Nick Holland (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

Author Louise Millar shared with us the music of her family Christmases past and present: Comfort and Joy with Louise Millar (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

Local bookseller Helen Bott reflected on a favourite childhood novel that always makes her feel festive: Comfort and Joy with Helen Bott (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

Writer Esther Rutter shared a precious family Christmas item that brings a little magic into the celebrations: Comfort and Joy with Esther Rutter (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

FbF blog writer Elizabeth Carpenter whisked us away to the wilds of wintery Russian literature: Comfort and Joy with Elizabeth Carpenter (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

Children’s author Francesca Armour-Chelu welcomed us into one of her family Christmas traditions: Comfort and Joy with Francesca Armour-Chelu (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

Local author Ruth Dugdall transported us around the world via her Christmas Tree decorations: Comfort and Joy with Ruth Dugdall (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

FbF volunteer and blog writer Anna Tink mused on the significance of Christmas trees and the beautiful things that bedeck them: Comfort and Joy with Anna Tink (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

Writer Elly Griffiths shared with us her family Christmas eve tradition: Comfort and Joy with Elly Griffiths (felixstowebookfestival.co.uk)

We do hope this project has brought a little joy, comfort and familiarity to a year such as 2020 and that it brings you a smile in the days to come. Now it’s time to sit back with a mince pie and something mulled and enjoy what the festive season brings, in whichever shape or form that may be. From the bottom of our bookish hearts we wish you a merry and peaceful Christmas with hope for a brighter new year ahead.

Merry Christmas everyone!

With love,

Imogen and the Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

 

Hello booklovers,

Today we bring you our last instalment in our Comfort and Joy Christmas blog series. We do hope you have enjoyed the bookish insights from authors and other festival folk over the past few weeks and that it has brought some festive cheer into your December. Today we round off with the Christmas musings of one of our best loved guests to the Felixstowe Book Festival, Elly Griffiths. Join Elly as she shares with us the Christmas Eve tradition that brings comfort and joy to her Christmas celebrations…

On Christmas Eve when they were two, my twins were given a copy of The Night Before Christmas by Clement C Moore illustrated by Douglas Gorsline. I read it to them that night and we were all entranced by the words and the pictures: the mantelpiece with the stockings hanging from it, the cat on the snowy window ledge, Mama in her kerchief and Papa in his cap, the tiny reindeer on the roof. And has there ever been a better description of Santa? He’s dressed all in fur, ‘a right jolly old elf’, bringing a touch of folkloric wildness into the cosy domestic scene.

It became our tradition to read the book on Christmas Eve every year. Even when the twins became teenagers, they humoured me and let me read to them about the angelic children nestled in their beds dreaming of sugarplums. The book has been influential in many ways. We realised, a few years ago, that at Christmas we decorate our sitting room to resemble Garsline’s illustration as closely as possible, with the tree to left of the fireplace and greenery along the mantelpiece. The poem is also a very useful aide-memoire for reindeer names (although Rudolph doesn’t appear), which has proved invaluable in more than one Christmas quiz.

In recent years my little angels have been out partying on Christmas Eve but this year, of course, that won’t be possible. We’ll have a cosy evening at home with our decorations and our cat snoozing in front of the fire. And, yes, there will come a point when I will get out our battered copy of The Night Before Christmas and start to read.

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Elly Griffiths x

Elly Griffiths is a British crime writer and author of the fascinating Dr Ruth Galloway series and the Stephens and Mephisto novels. Her latest standalone novel, The Postscript Murders, was published in October this year. Elly is a long standing supporter of the Felixstowe Book Festival and we look forward to seeing her again very soon. 

Hello booklovers,

As we get closer and closer to Christmas Day, our festive blogs delve closer and closer into the long rooted family traditions of our bookish writers. Today Anna, a festival volunteer and writer for our blog, shares with us the significance of the family Christmas tree, branching out to beloved decorations Christmas books and a delightful Christmas poem. Sit back and soak up this wonderful segment of pure comfort and joy…

“Comfort and joy”, words, taken from one of my favourite carols, reassuring during these difficult days, as has been this joyful festive blog series provided by our wonderful Felixstowe Book Festival. I was delighted to be asked to contribute.

More words, this time from a favourite Christmas poem by ee cummings, ‘little tree’.

“look the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to

shine,”

A great joy to me every Christmas has been the family Christmas tree. When I was little, dad was in charge of getting the tree and potting the tree, with varying degrees of help from myself and my brother as we got older. Mum was in charge of decorating the tree and keeping it watered, again with help, more enthusiastic, from the offspring as the years went by. I missed one family Christmas tree, whilst spending a year in California, and even then mum sent decorations to adorn my American foliage and cause a sentimental tear or two.

As the years passed, my husband and I brought both our families’ tree traditions to bear on our own lives together, (we’ll gloss over the year, early on in our married life, when a cupboard draped with 2 strands of fairy lights was deemed sufficient as we were not going to be at home for that year’s festive period – rest assured that that never happened again!).

Our children arrived and brought their own magical delight and tradition to the creation of our Christmas centre piece. One day in every December is still spent in seeking out the perfect tree and dressing it, with everyone having their role to play, as it has been in all the 50 plus years that I can remember. We’ve had trees that toppled as soon as they were placed in the pot, trees that waited till the final glorious placing of the fairy doll after hours of careful arrangement, before a gentle sigh and faint bell like tinkle indicated an imminent sagging. All the family cats over the years have contributed to our Christmas tree saga. My best beloved black cat of childhood could teach Lynsey Dodd’s wonderful Slinki Malinki a thing or two about arboreal destruction; our little kittens first Christmas 23 years ago was marked by two furry faces amongst the upper branches of our Spruce, miraculously the tree itself remained upright (unlike the pelmet and newly hung curtains behind it!). Our current feline companion, a traumatiised rescue cat, finds our tree a thing of wonder and has spent many an hour just sitting and looking at it.

For me, this year’s tree has been even more of a source of comfort as well as joy. Husband and daughter selected as always a glorious adornment to our sitting room, it went straight into its pot first time, with not a wobble in sight (collective sigh of relief through the generations, my dad and my husband have been known to utter some rather unfestive words at this delicate juncture in the process!), the decorations, benefitting from careful wrapping last year emerged unscathed, including a bauble that was considered absolutely the height of luxury when it was hanging from our tree in suburban London all those decades ago. For years my brother and I alternated who was to hang it, and woe betide the one who tried to snatch it out of turn! . Christened the Queen ball, it felt like quite a royal progress the year that my mum handed it over for me to hang in my Suffolk home. This has given me years of it always being my turn to place it, though when my brother is able to visit us on decorating weekend, I grudgingly hand it over! . This year that venerable decoration is hanging alongside our newest acquisitions, a hot air balloon and a polar bear in tribute to some favourite family literature and tv viewing.

My reflections on Christmas trees and the comfort and joy they have brought to me over the years has nailed for me that of course the tree and its mix of decorations, old and new, lovingly handcrafted or bought for their beauty or appropriateness, itself embodies the actuality of the beloved family and friends who have been with me round the tree over the years as we decorate, who have given or made a bauble that we are hanging, who have stood back in admiration, picked the tree up when its fallen, shared fond and hilarious memories of trees past, school or home made decorations resolutely still with us 20 years down the line (or in some cases, 50, I swear my mum still has a silver bell I made at Blue Peter’s instruction out of an egg box, silver foil and string!). The pine needley smell is enough to evoke a fond thought about those whom I love best.

Mum and dad no longer have the huge tree of family Christmases gone by, but the smaller version that each year now their granddaughter persuades them to display, exhibits where all the comfort and joy that I am lucky enough to have known all my life first began.

Life is difficult at the moment but I would wish us all the most comfort and joy filled Christmas that we can manage this year.

‘and looking up at our beautiful tree

we’ll dance and sing

“Noel Noel” ‘

 

Merry Christmas,

Anna x

Hello booklovers,

Some comfort and joy is much needed today here at the Felixstowe Book Festival and who better to ask to cheer us along than local author Ruth Dugdall? Read on to find out all about the tree and the festive decorations that make Ruth’s Christmas…

Christmas will be different for us all this year. The things that bring us joy are perhaps even more precious, talismans from Christmases past, hopeful symbols of better times to come.

Given the understandable limits on sharing our homes, there are signs that people are focussing  on the outside, lighting hedges and trees, making our streets twinkle. My Nordic spruce is by the window, so it can be seen from the doorway, to spread joy to folk I would normally welcome in, but this year will greeting on the stoop.

On that tree are other things to bring joy: I’ve been collecting tree ornaments since 1996, when I first met my husband, Andrew. That first year we visited Lake Bled, where I bought a nativity set. Some of the figures are chipped, and a donkey is missing its ear, but it will still find a home in the stable.

Hanging from the branches is a centaur from Russia where we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. I have an articulated lobster from Cape Cod, where our daughter Amber learned to swim, and a mini bottle of Guinness from a (freezing) trip to Ireland, when Eden was a baby. Baubles from Luxembourg and California, where we lived for a time, are more recent additions. As we’ve been unable to journey anywhere this year, these trinkets feel precious. Symbols of memories we made, but also the significance of returning home.

From my home, to yours, I wish you a peaceful and happy Christmas.

Ruth x

 

 

Born and bred in Felixstowe, Ruth is a crime writer. Her novels include Humber Boy B, The Woman Before Me and The Sacrificial Man. Alongside her writing Ruth works within the Criminal Justice System – most recently this role has taken her to Luxembourg. Despite her travels taking her far and wide, Ruth continues to be a brilliant supporter of the Felixstowe Book Festival. 

 

Hello booklovers,

It’s one week until Christmas Day! December has sped by bringing with it an odd mix of uncertainty mixed with the festive rituals and familiarity that we all become re-acquainted with at this time of year. Children’s author Francesca Armour-Chelu brings comfort and joy to us today as she shares memories past and present of happy family Christmases.

When I was very small, my dad would wait until we’d gone to bed on Christmas Eve before decorating the tree, so the first time we’d see it would be on Christmas morning, as if it had been conjured up overnight from a snowy Northern forest, already laden with baubles and tinsel. It was one of the things that made the tree seem most magical; its miraculous arrival, that it meant Christmas was really here. When we got older my sisters and I would help decorate it too, with carols playing and the room lit by candlelight. My dad still liked to hang up the glass baubles though; almost ceremoniously lifting them from their box. They were big as grapefruits, iridescent with age, fragile as egg-shells – and if one dropped, even onto carpet, it’d smash to smithereens revealing a mirrored interior like a Fabergé egg. The tree was done once the star was up and my Mum would say ‘Isn’t it lovely!’

Although Christmas is about family customs, my Dad used to believe families should make new traditions for themselves too, so although I have the old baubles, I now keep them stowed away (partly because I’d hate to break them!) On the night of the winter solstice, we hang these lead-crystal drops instead; they’re from an old chandelier, so heavy they bend the branches, and once the lights are switched on, they make the tree sparkle like a firework. Finally, we put the shuttlecock angel up, with its wonky felt-tip pen eyes that our eldest made when he was in primary and only then is the tree done. Before I say ‘Isn’t it lovely!’ one of the kids will say it for me, because I’m nothing if not predictable when it comes to flattering Christmas trees.

With the kids teasing me and goofing around with lametta, Christmas is underway. I raise a glass to my parents for giving me so much love for its magic – and for the luck of having kids to pass it on to.

Merry Christmas!

Francesca x

Francesca is a children’s author whose excellent works include Fenn Halflin and the Fear-Zero, Fenn Halflin and the Seaborn and The Butterfly Circus. Alongside her writing Francesca works for Suffolk Libraries and runs creative writing workshops.

Hello booklovers,

We have welcomed bookish folk to our blog over the past few weeks to share with us what makes their Christmas joyful. We’ve had all sorts of different festive offerings, from book recommendations to handmade stockings, to a piece about the scent of Christmas. Today we bring you something completely different – Elizabeth, one of our writers, whisks us away to the wilds of wintery Russian literature with some reading resolutions for the new year. Enjoy…

Nothing speaks Wintery landscapes more than the harsh crispness of Leo Tolstoy’s Russia. Strangely enough, this is what came to my mind when presented with the theme ‘comfort and joy’. Although the themes of Tolstoy’s novels are not very joyful at all, there is something very fun about being swept into the depths of the narratives from the comfort of your home. I have to confess, I am one of those people who claims to be obsessed with Russian literature, without having ever braved any of the tomes. Maybe it’s more that I love the atmosphere and images they bring to mind; icy Moscow and snowy St Petersburg, sad but beautiful women adorned in fur coats being pulled along in sleds, attractive men duelling over forbidden love against a backdrop of snow. That sort of thing.

I associate the Christmas period with cosy days curled up on the sofa, fire burning and candles lit, watching my favourite adaptations of a classic Russian novel. Joe Wright’s 2012 adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina has to be top of the list. It is a feast for the eyes and visually spectacular. Alongside this, is the 1999 version of Alexander Pushkin’s (Eugene) ‘Onegin’, directed by Martha Fiennes and starring Ralph Fiennes as Eugene, and Liv Tyler as Tatiana. I had hot tears running down my cheeks by the end, the first time I watched this. I think I was 12 and it was probably the beginning of my career as a hapless romantic. There are some great furs in this one. Perhaps it will tempt you to give the 19th-century Russian look a try? If you are in for the long haul, then I would recommend committing to the BBC adaptation of War and Peace, which graced our screens back in 2016. Paul Dano plays the ever comforting and sweet-faced Pierre Bezukhov, in a really moving performance. Adapted by period drama expert Andrew Davies, known for his well-loved adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, I have re-watched and loved the six episodes many times.

As much as I love the ease of settling down to watch these meaty narratives play out before my eyes, it is my resolution to have read at least one of the Russian classics by the end of next year. ‘The Anna Karenina Fix; Life Lessons from Russian Literature’ by Viv Groskop, is a brilliant collection of essays that has completely inspired me to take a new approach to the Russians. Groskop proclaims that ‘it’s time to take all the doubt and fuss and snobbery and pretence out of this kind of reading’. ‘Don’t be afraid not to finish or to come back years later’. Extremely refreshing advice! Groskop’s collection untangles what some of the Russian greats (including Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, Dr Zhivago, Three Sisters, and many more), can teach us about our own lives. At the heart of many of these narratives are complex family dynamics that are completely relatable. The context of the times we live in may have changed, but the human condition has not. Groskop’s commentary is light-hearted, witty, and is guaranteed to inspire you to delve into that crusty second-hand copy of War and Peace, that may or may not be collecting dust on a shelf somewhere.

Russian Literature is probably not the most obvious place to seek comfort and joy. In fact, one can expect to encounter the opposite. However, the comfort I seek in reading is in the lives reflected on the page, in which a sense of humanity can be found. As this year has taught us, life is a trajectory full of twists and turns and it is impossible to expect it to be easy all of the time, (I am sure Tolstoy has something wise to say on this topic). It is key then, to take pleasure in small things. And what could be more glorious, than allowing yourself to be transported by the written word?

Merry Christmas!

Elizabeth x

 

Hello booklovers,

In today’s festive blog offering the bringer of comfort and joy is author Esther Rutter. Esther shares with us a beautiful family treasure which will certainly bring much magic to many Christmases to come and serves as a reminder of the simple joys of the season.

My source of ‘Comfort and Joy’ is a small red sock which we hang up each December. Sewn from an old red blanket and hand-stitched with stars, it is my little daughter’s Christmas stocking. We’ve only had it for a couple of years – she’s just a toddler – but I’ve already become very attached to it, and unwrapping it from its tissue paper nest after a year of exile in the attic always feels extra special.

As a child I loved the excitement of opening stockings – though mine was always one of Dad’s thick woolly socks, stretched into strange knobbles as it struggled to contain a bounty of oranges, chocolate coins, and little presents. Opening stockings always came first on Christmas morning – no need to wait until dawn flooded the windows, or the adults dragged themselves from bed. Christmas began with that bundle of just-for-me joy.

This stocking was by Ericka Eckles, a sensitive and skilled seamstress and knitter who decided to make my daughter a trio of beautiful woollen gifts to celebrate her birth – and the birth of my first book This Golden Fleece (2019). Though I’ve only met Ericka once, I think of her as a ‘sister-in-wool’: we are both Suffolk born and bred, and share a love of knitting, baking, and books. As my daughter pulls out her presents from her stocking this year, I’ll tell her about the woman who made this just for her, and hope that next year they might be able to meet in person for the first time.

Happy Christmas!

Esther x

Esther Rutter is a non fiction writer and writer in residence at the University of St Andrews. Her first book, This Golden Fleece, was published last year. Esther grew up on a sheep farm in Suffolk and has woven a love of all things woolly into her fascinating work.

Hello booklovers,

We have a festive treat in store for you this weekend. Helen Bott of Treasure Chest Books, a magnificent second hand book shop in the heart of Felixstowe, shares with us the book that brings her comfort and joy at Christmas.

When I mentioned the book I was thinking about for this blog at the family dinner table, there were howls of derision. ‘That’s not a Christmas book’ and ‘Of course you’d choose that book’ amongst other comments. But the opening line of the  book in question is ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents’ and the title of the second chapter is  ‘Merry Christmas’. I rest my case

The book is, of course, Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’, my favourite childhood book. I loved reading and rereading about the lives of the March sisters and have welcomed the chance to reread it again almost 50 years later. My 1970s paperback copy is just about holding together. There was so much I didn’t understand at the time. What was this war which had taken father away? What was a poplin dress? Why did they eat muffins for breakfast? What was a russet apple? But so much else made sense especially the relationships between the sisters. And their experience of Christmas still rings true. With hindsight the sanctimonious, proselytising tone can grate a little (my own daughter refused to read it when she was young) but the opening chapters are still a wonderful, warming Christmas read.

The sisters know that there isn’t enough money for lots of presents this year, they all have a dollar to spend and would like books, music, drawing pencils but decide to spend their money on gifts for Marmee. In return they receive matching religious tracts which they plan to read every day. I loved the description of these books, all different colours, how that appealed to my 10 year old’s love of all things matching, I’m not sure I would have wanted such a gift myself. Then they decide to take their Christmas Day breakfast to a poor starving family, competing with Dickens here and of course their kindness is rewarded when old Mr Laurence sends a Christmas tea of ice cream, cake and ‘French bonbons’ (I never did understand why the tea included toffees covered in icing sugar…)

The best and funniest section is the description of the play the sisters put on for Marmee and other friends in which the scenery collapses, Meg wanders around looking beautiful, Jo overacts and Amy refuses to throw herself into the role of romantic heroine, ‘her ‘Ow’ was more suggestive of pins being run into her than of fear and anguish’. As a child who used to dragoon her younger siblings into performing a play for parents and grandparents, I felt Jo’s pain.

So if you want a change from Tiny Tim and his turkey, dig out your old copy of ‘Little Women.’ Look past the nineteenth century moralising, Meg does actually say ‘That’s loving our neighbour better than ourselves and I like it’ and there’s a very human description of a family celebrating Christmas. You can almost feel the heat from the blazing fire and taste the treats sent by Mr Laurence. Now I’m going to reread the whole book and ‘Good Wives’ too.

Happy Christmas!

Helen

Hello booklovers,

Today author Louise Millar brings us comfort and joy by sharing precious memories of Elvis’ crooning tunes as the soundtrack to her family Christmases past and present. Warning: a festive tear may well be brought to your eye…

Elvis Presley runs a fine thread through my family story. I don’t remember a time, as a child, when his music wasn’t playing in our car, on the way to the shops, or on holiday, or home to Glasgow at Christmas, the four of us singing along to Wooden Heart, making up the German lines: ‘Moosy den, moosy den…’

In our own house at Christmas, Elvis’ comforting croon was accompanied by the smell of smoke from the fire and my father’s cigar, laughter rising, as family and friends arrived. My dad and uncles’ competitive story-telling starting up at lunch, becoming sillier and funnier, the day ending with dancing in the sitting-room, and a late-night singalong.

But Elvis was not just for Christmas in our family. He had famously instilled an exuberant new spirit in my parents’ post-war 1950s generation. They just loved him. In the 1970s, on a business trip to California, they decided, after a party, to peek over the wall of his mansion, my mum teetering on my dad’s shoulders. Was the shadowy figure who emerged to chase them away a security guard or, in fact, Elvis? As kids, we decided Elvis, of course.

Their love of him transferred to me. Decades later, I would drive across Mississippi interviewing people whose lives had been changed by their state’s famous son. The highlight was meeting Reverend Frank Smith, who’d taught young Elvis his first guitar chords. That story became my first published newspaper article, and the start of my journey as a professional writer.

Today, Elvis still says ‘home’ to me. I still play his music at Christmas. And when I do, I think fondly of my father, cigar and brandy in hand, mischievous smile as he told another silly story, never happier, I now realise, than with all of us on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas,

Louise x

Louise Millar is a crime writer and the author of four acclaimed psychological thrillers. Her work focuses largely on the darker layers of the domestic sphere.

Louise was also a journalist and senior editor for Marie Claire and her travel writing has featured in The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Observer.

Alongside her writing, Louise is a founding member of two writing groups, and co-founder of Killer Women, a professional collective of twenty-one female crime authors created to amplify and support women’s voices in crime writing. She is co-founder of the annual Killer Women crime writing festival in London, and publisher of the multi-award-nominated Killer Women anthology.