News 1 September 2024

 Hope always?

 

We’ve waited and waited for the summer up here in the north. Over the last couple of days it seems to have come. There are concerns I know about cop failure yet nature is cellar still working.  During our trip to the Lake District a few weeks ago the flowers were glorious, both the cultivated ones in the many gardens we visited and the wild ones.  At the verges of roads and in some of the gardens of the big houses we visited the grass isn’t cut back so much and you see swathes of yellow, purple, blue and pink form the wild flowers growing there. This is giving the bees and the butterflies a chance, and thereby our planet isn’t it?

In my French conversation class we can become quite political and quite philosophical, often veering towards the doom and gloom, but one lady declared she would just sit in the garden with her sun hat on and enjoy the sun. This reminded of me being astounded when one fine spring day we went to Kew Garden with my husband’s grandmother and she remarked that the spring had also come that early one year during the war. Nature went on regardless of the pickle that we humans were getting into.

Do most of our stories have an upbeat ending or even one that gives the possibility of hope? Some don’t of course and they can be quite dramatic and challenging but on the whole don’t they usually leave some space for optimism? Is this what we are to do? And in fact don’t even those challenging ones get some of our fears out into the open so that we can face them?

Happy reading and writing, everyone.    

 

  

Writing news

I’ve just started the ‘get rid of clichés’ edit of Peace Child 6.

I have three articles on Talking About My Generation

I review: 

               

 

a rather interesting book that gives another view of Manchester - https://talkingaboutmygeneration.co.uk/review-something-rich-and-strange-manchester-edited-by-paul-dobraszczyk-and-sarah-butler/?utm_     

a performance of Lord of the Dance at Manchester’s Palace Theatre  - https://talkingaboutmygeneration.co.uk/review-lord-of-the-dance-at-the-palace-theatre-manchester/

the Bolton food festival https://talkingaboutmygeneration.co.uk/review-the-bolton-food-and-drink-festival-2024/

On My Blog

 

I’ve talked to two writers and an artist this month. I chat to PamPottinger and India Rose about their book The Sea and the Moon.  I also talk to Linda Morse about her collection of monologues, And I Said

I’ve added an article as well about a book I’ve worked on and how it deals with time: Significant Dates.                             

 

The Young Person’s Library 

 

I’ve added two new books this month. A Celebration of Beatrix Potter on Arts and Letters is perhaps also for adults though can aid some younger readers with project work.    

                                                                                                     

The Taexali Game by Nancy Jardine is a YA text that combines video gaming with time travel.   

 

Recommended read 

 

I loved The Lost Diary by Rose Alexander.

Two riveting stories form the past combine with a more recent dilemma.

This story covers three of the grimmest aspects of World War II, aspects not often covered in mass market lit: the Death Marches, German civilian refugees and rapes by Russian soldiers.
The personal story of Katja and Lou is gripping and we are kept guessing right until the very end.

The framework is of Katja at last telling her daughter Jo the true story of what happened to her and of Jo reading Lou’s story in the forgotten diary.

There is surprise after surprise.

Jo too has her problems but realises that they are of little significance compared to what happened to her parents.

Yet Katja’s narration of what happened also helps to solve Jo’s problems.

A fantastic read

Find your copy here

Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay, at no extra cost to you, may go to Bridge House Publishing.    

  

 Giveaway  

This month I’m giving away The Prophecy.  

 

Grab your copy here. You’ll find two different e-book files and a PDF plus a lot of other free materials here.

Kaleem Malkendy is different – and on Terrestra, different is no way to be.
Everything about Kaleem marks him out form the rest: the blond hair and dark skin, the uncomfortable cave where he lives and the fact that he doesn’t know his father. He’s used to unwelcome attention, but even so he’d feel better if some strange old man didn’t keep following him around.
That man introduces himself and begins to explain the Babel Prophecy – and everything in Kaleem’s life changes forever.

Please leave a review on Amazon, if you’re allowed to, on Good Reads and anywhere else you can.

The Schellberg Project 

 

The posts may be helpful for teachers who are familiar with the Schellberg stories or who are teaching about the Holocaust.  They may also be interesting for other readers of historical fiction.

The month I have written about Christian Resistance to the Holocaust and the NaziRegime

 

Some notes about my newsletters and blogs

They do overlap a little but here is a summary of what they all do.

 

Bridge House Authors For all those published by Bridge House, CaféLit, Chapeltown or The Red Telephone or interested in being published by us. General news about the imprints. News for writers. Links to book performance. Sign up here.

 

The Bridgetown  Café Bookshop where you can buy my books and books published by Bridge House Publishing, CafeLit, Chapeltown Books and The Red Telephone.  Visit us here.     

 

Gill’s News: News about my writing, The Schellberg Project, School Visits and Events. Book recommendations and giveaways. Find it here.   

 

Pushing Boundaries, Flying Higher News about conferences and workshops to do with the young adult novel. (infrequent postings) Sign up here.  

 

Red Telephone Books News about our books and our authors. Sign up here.

 

A Publisher’s Perspective Here I and some other editors blog as a publisher. Access this here.   

 

The Creative Café Project Listings and reviews of creative cafés. See them here.   

 

CaféLit Stories Find these here

 

Gill James Writer All about writing and about my books. View this here.

 

Gill’s Recommended Reads Find information here about books that have taken me out of my editor’s head and a reminder of the ones I’ve highlighted in this newsletter.    

 

Gill’s Sample Fiction Read some of my fiction here.

 

The House on Schellberg Street All about my Schellberg project. Read it here.

 

Writing Teacher All about teaching creative writing.  Some creative writing exercises. Access this here.  I also invite other writers to provide prompts and work for critique.     

 

Books Books Books Weekly offers on our books and news of new books. Find them here. 

 

The Young Person’s Library The children’s book catalogue. Access it here.

 

Fair Submissions  Find it here.   

Opportunities for writers are added several times a day. Roughly once a month I send it out to a list. If you would like to be on that list, sign up here.  

Happy reading and writing.

 

 

Launching Face to Face with the Führer

A pistol, an anteroom a Führer: will she shoot him?

Is this fiction or is this a true story? Well, if it’s true story, she obviously didn’t. It could be fiction but maybe not completely. Does she shoot him if it is? There’s one sure way to find out.

I’m holding two launch events for this book. One is on-line on 18 the May and the other is at The Met in Bury on 24 May. On 18 May the focus will be on this book, the fourth in the Schellberg cycle. The event on 24 will be about the whole cycle.

The cycle is based on real events but there is a lot of fiction there. Fiction is used here as method for exploring unestablished facts.

The essence of the true story is that a school sheltering disabled children was protected in Nazi Germany. It seems like a miracle that it survived. The cycle attempts to unpick that miracle. How did it survive? And what of the ordinary young German women who surrounded this event? What was life like for them?

An exercise book full of letters found in an attic partly answer these questions. This was a starting point for finding the answer to that question. You can read more about the Schellberg Cycle here. http://www.thehouseonschellbergstreet.com/

Face to face with the Führer focuses on a Holocaust survivor, mother of another survivor and daughter of a victim. She might also be described as one of our feisty women. (Chapeltown Books, Feisty Women series)

Sign up for the on-line event here. More news about the one at The Met to follow.     

    

 

News 1 April 2021

 

A bit of risk-taking and some writing inspiration

I’m having a problem with my leg and my GP sent me to the hospital for a scan and a blood test. The day everybody returned to work. The GP was running late, so I had to sit in the waiting room for a while, something I’d tried to avoid by arriving just five minutes before my appointment. Then I had cross some “medium risk” areas within the hospital. Martin had dropped me off earlier.  People are avoiding public transport at the moment so parking is a nightmare.  I needed to pick up the prescription my GP had given me, so I opted to risk coming back by bus and pop into the pharmacy on the way. And I hit the school run!  I have to say the kids were really good. They all wore masks on the bus.  They knew not to crowd on to it and when I got to my stop and had to make my way past them to get off, they stood well back and they all held their breath.   

I’m glad to say they found nothing untoward with my leg and hopefully the antibiotics I’ve been given will do the trick.

And what a joy to be out amongst people again and collecting hundreds of ideas for stories.

The bus route also takes us past a very pretty little park that is actually within walking distance of our house.  Spring is bursting out all over there, so I’m looking forward to visiting it again soon.      

                  

News about my writing and other creative projects

The Class Letter, the fifth book in the Schellberg Cycle is now completely edited and queued for publication. I am now on the third edit of Not Just Fluffy Bunnies which I’m reading out loud.  I’m still working on The Business of Writing.  I’m interspersing all of this with short stories and flash fiction though not quite so much of that at the moment as I’ve started my fifth novel in the Peace Child series.  

I continue to write for Talking about My Generation, and I’m pleased to say that some of my creative writing series made it into the hard copy magazine, as did my article about my early childhood holidays at Colwyn Bay. 

Yesterday LOCKDOWN NUMBER TW0 was published. I have two stories in this volume. You can find it here.   I’ve bought a copy for my Kindle and three paperbacks. I see it already has three good reviews.

“A collection of fifteen winning short stories and an additional five stories, some of which contain adult language. These twenty short stories, based on "Lockdown Number Two" and "General" themes, are innovative, amusing and captivating to read. It is interesting to discover, particularly, how people spent their lockdown periods during 2020 in either real or imaginary situations.”

   

 

The Young Person’s Library

This month I’ve added:

The Power of her Pen by Lesa Cline-Ransome and John Para  

This is a non-fiction picture book possibly suitable for upper primary children. 

Prince Caspian by C S Lewis

A classic suitable for the fluent upper primary reader.

 

What We're Scared Of by Keren David

A young adult text that portrays some antisemitism.      

 

 

Current reading recommendation

This month I’m recommending Keren David’s What We’re Scared Of.

I’d also like to flag up here The Hive who recommended the book to me. This is a lovely on-line book shop that supports independent bookshops. Their site is clean and uncluttered, they deliver our print on demand books quickly and sell them at the RRP which Amazon is not doing at the moment.

What We’re Scared Of starts off with many of the marks of the chicklet-lit book. However, it becomes more serious as non-identical twins Evie and Lottie confront their Jewishness. 

Evie is a feisty stand-up comic and goes to the local comprehensive school.  Lottie is tall and thin.  She possibly has an eating disorder though this is understated. She also suffers from asthma. She attends a fee-paying school. As Evie gets to know the son of their mother’s friend and as Lottie gets to know school friend Hannah better the girls begin to realise that their being Jewish is significant.  After their mother protests openly on her radio show about antisemitism both girls are exposed to danger.  Will life ever be the same again? Will they be able to live with their Jewishness?

What we’re Scared Of   will really get you gunning for Evie and Lottie. Keren David has created an engaging and enticing read here.

Get your copy via The Hive here  or Amazon here.       

Giveaway

Note: these are usually mobi-files to be downloaded to a Kindle.  Occasionally there are PDFs.  

This month I’m giving away The Best of CaféLit 6

This is the collection of the best stories that appeared on the CaféLit site in 2016. Each story is accompanied by a drink suggestion. You might read the stories according to what you fancy drinking rather than in the order they’re listed in the book.

For CaféLit we like to have a variety of stories – short, down to 50 words or longer up to 3,000 words. We like darker stories that make you think or scare you. We also like lighter stories that make you smile or that lift your heart. We have some writers who really understand CaféLit and we publish them again and again. We also welcome new writers. Which story will you read today?

Hopefully you will enjoy this collection and you may then be tempted to purchase more in the series.  

The Best of CaféLit 6 is as you might suspect the sixth in the Best of CaféLit series. These are all short story collections by multiple authors.

Pick up your free copy here.         

Note, that normally my books and the books supplied by the imprints I manage sell for anything from £0.99 to £10.99.  Most on Kindle are about £2.99 and the average price for paperback is £7.00. Writers have to make a living. But I’m offering these free samples so that you can try before you buy.

   

 

The Schellberg Project

The posts may be helpful for teachers who are familiar with the Schellberg stories or who are teaching about the Holocaust and also for other writers and readers of historical fiction.

Sometimes I also write about what might be of interest to other writers.

There were two posts in March:

The Class Letter (Book 5) almost finished

As you would probably expect here I write about finishing The Class Letter.

I have also here another review of What We’re Scared Of  but here I go into more detail about how this reflects on the Holocaust.       

 

 

 

School visits

I’ve suspended these until further notice. I’m now starting work on a series of on-line materials.  

Some notes about my newsletters and blogs

They do overlap a little but here is a summary of what they all do.

 

Bridge House Authors For all those published by Bridge House, CaféLit, Chapeltown or The Red Telephone or interested in being published by us. General news about the imprints. News for writers. Links to book performance. Sign up here.

 

The Bridgetown  Café Bookshop where you can buy my book and books published by Bridge House Publishing, CafeLit, Chapeltown Books and The Red Telephone.  We’re building up our inventory, so please bear with us. Visit us here.     

 

Chapeltown Books News about our books. Sign up here.

 

The Creative Café Project News about the project and CaféLit – for the consumer rather than for the producer.  Sign up here.   

 

Gill’s News: News about my writing, The Schellberg Project, School Visits and Events. Book recommendations and giveaways. Find it here.   

 

Pushing Boundaries, Flying Higher News about conferences and workshops to do with the young adult novel. (infrequent postings) Sign up here.  

 

Red Telephone Books News about our books and our authors. Sign up here.

 

A Publisher’s Perspective Here I blog as a publisher. Access this here.   

 

The Creative Café Project Listings and reviews of creative cafés. See them here.   

 

CaféLit Stories Find these here

 

Gill James Writer All about writing and about my books. View this here.

 

Gill’s Recommended Reads Find information here about books that have taken me out of my editor’s head and a reminder of the ones I’ve highlighted in this newsletter.    

 

Gill’s Sample Fiction Read some of my fiction here.

 

The House on Schellberg Street All about my Schellberg project. Read it here.

 

Writing Teacher All about teaching creative writing.  Some creative writing exercises. Access this here.     

 

Books Books Books Weekly offers on our books and news of new books. Find them here. 

 

The Young Person’s Library The children’s book catalogue. Access it here.

 

Fair Submissions  Find it here.   

Opportunities for writers are added several times a day. Roughly once a month I send it out to a list. If you would like to be on that list, sign up here.  

Happy reading and writing.

 

Writing Girl in a Smart Uniform

About the book

The story is based on something that really happened but for which we have a yet had no real explanation. A house in Germany held a special class in its cellar. Disabled children and children with learning difficulties came as day students to a little school in a house that belonged to woman by race defined as a Jewess even though she was no longer Jewish by religion.  There is an irony there.  The school survived and continued to operate from the house until the 1960s and only moved because it became too big.

We believe that the equivalents of Dad’s Army were asked to destroy the house and its occupants. They refused. The Hitler Youth were then asked to clear the house and they also refused. So it was down to the BDM girls. The BDM was the girls’ version of the Hitler Youth. They really were threatened with dire consequences if they didn’t obey.  So, they set fire to the cellar – but got the children out first.

The story came to us via my mother-in-law who was the granddaughter of Clara Lehrs, owner of the house where the school was held.

In this instance I’ve used fiction as a way of uncovering the facts.

We’re not even certain if this is the school she used to tell us about but some of my further research had led us to believe that this was the school she meant.

Research for this book

It all started with a sabbatical from the University of Salford and was based on some letters my mother-in-law received in 1979. Renate James (nee Edler) started to write her story but sadly lost her life to breast cancer in 1986. I decided to finish the story for her.

The letters were from her classmates at a school that she went to in Nuremberg. The school had to close because it wasn’t teaching the Nazi curriculum. Renate thought she was going to Stuttgart. In fact she was sent to England on the Kindertransport only days after her parents told her she was Jewish.  That has stopped many a publisher wanting to publish the books. How she could have not known, they asked. Well, she didn’t. So, I’ve published them through my own publishing company.

The girls kept a round robin letter going for several years and they filled three exercise books. One lady had found the middle one in her attic and made it her duty to contact every single one of the girls, including Renate.

The letters give a real insight to what it was like being a young woman during World War II in Germany. Before I started writing I transcribed all of the letters- some of them were very difficult to read - and then I translated them.  I really got to know these young women quite well that way.   

As I worked on telling Renate’s story as a novel, I found out more and more about her grandmother, who became the subject for the next book, Clara’s Story.            

 

Why I was inspired to write this

I wanted to explore a little more how young German women thought and why there was this resistance to authority just in time. Have I got it right? Who knows? I’ve given the protagonist a hard time: her parents separate, she has a Down syndrome step-brother, an abusive older brother and a nicer older brother who is killed in the war.  And there are many other problems as well.

       

What's next?

Well Face to Face with the Führer is the story of Renate’s mother, also a remarkable woman. The cover has a handbag and an antique pistol on it.  I say no more. But what might have been one of her achievements?  That is waiting in the queue to be published.

I’m also on my second draft of The Round Robin. I’m exploring in more detail three of the girls who were involved in the letters and their class teacher. The book is really fictional and only very loosely based on the original girls.

Then I’m planning a book about Helga who is a fictional character in Girl in a Smart Uniform. She is another Holocaust survivor but her story will be mainly in the 21^st century.

As I wrote the first draft of The Round Robin I encountered another interesting character. One of the girls has an aunt who is involved in the German resistance. Will this series ever stop?        

How can we get a copy of the book?

Just click on the picture above. Links to the other two books are down below.

Do you have any events planned?

I have a whole workshop for schools. See details here. I’m happy to adapt to facilitating this via Zoom or other similar video-conferencing facilities.