One of my favourite Roman fiction authors – Lindsey Davis

Lindsey Davis with Alison at the 2014 Historical Novel Society Conference

I was lurking in Waterstone’s Tunbridge Wells one day in the mid 1990s. (It had an apostrophe in the name then so I’ve left it in for authenticity.) My favourite genres were historical fiction, sci-fi, thrillers and crime. Wandering round the tables […]

Roman taxing times

As I sit down to fill in my tax return, I’m looking for any distraction. I wondered how the ancient Romans were taxed. Today we have income tax, company/corporation tax, sales taxes/VAT, excise duties (road fund licence (UK), alcohol, cigarettes), local taxation, inheritance tax, to name but a few. But how similar are our taxes […]

Who owns your story?

At book club yesterday, we discussed many things. Books, obviously, but the conversation wandered on to reader expectations and I threw out the question about who owns the story in the book – the author, the reader, both or none of the above?

My stories start in my head, but they are the result of […]