For all the audiobook fans out there, this month sees the release of not one, but FOUR new full-length audiobooks! 

All of them are narrated by me, and are released for the first time in their complete form. Check them out here on Audible!

FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE 

COASTLINERS

BLACKBERRY WINE

JIGS & REELS

Look at this beauty!

A lavish omnibus of my three novellas, A POCKETFUL OF CROWS, THE BLUE SALT ROAD and ORFEIA, with gorgeous illustrations from Bonnie, plus a new introductory chapter from me, and three brand-new short stories, all set in the HONEYCOMB universe…

On sale from November 2nd. Pre-order your copy here!

Right now, to celebrate the coldest, wettest summer we’ve had in decades, here’s a special offer on BROKEN LIGHT – here on Kindle UK for just 99p…

And here it is on Kobo, for the same ridiculous price.  Enjoy!

At last, I’m taking a little break, after over a months’ touring for the new book. Thank you so much to everyone who bought, borrowed or reviewed BROKEN LIGHT: your support means so much to me, as do your blog posts and comments. I’m more or less done with touring right now, with a few events still to go throughout the summer, but I’m adding to my schedule all the time, so keep watching my Events page if you’d like to attend one.

However, taking a break from touring doesn’t mean I’m stopping work altogether. Right now, I’m just finishing copy-editing a new fantasy novel for Gollancz, as well as putting together the new bumper edition of my three folklore-inspired novellas (including three new short stories and an introduction from me), which will be coming out in November.

Till then, here’s a little piece for the Telegraph about mermaids in folklore and literature. Read it here…

Thank you so much to everyone who helped the Bernie Moonwalkers reach their fundraising target – it was a great night, and we raised lots of money for breast cancer charities…

Have you ever felt invisible?

Bernie Moon has given her life to other people: her husband, her son, her friends (who are these days, mostly online). At nineteen she was full of dreams and ambitions. Now, at nearly fifty, she often feels like she’s losing her mind.

But when a young woman is murdered in a local park, it sparks a series of childhood memories in Bernie and with them, a talent that has lain dormant most of her adult life.

She promised herself she’d never think of it again. When she was a teenager, it almost destroyed her. But now she’s older, could it be the power she’s been missing?

Could it be the chance to, finally, make them look?

BROKEN LIGHT is the unforgettable new novel from no.1 Sunday Times bestselling author, Joanne Harris.

Pre-order your copy of Broken Light SIGNED by Joanne Harris from participating Independent bookstores.

(WHILE STOCKS LAST)

Bookstores who are stocking this signed edition:

BIG GREEN BOOKS

QUEENS PARK BOOKS

READ

HUNT’S BOOKSHOP

BOOKA, OSWESTRY

GOLDSBOROUGH

COLES, BICESTER

TOPPING & CO

LINGHAMS HESWALL

FOX LANE BOOKS

TRUMAN BOOKS, LEEDS

Visit your nearest store or check out their website in order to pre-order!

Love indie bookshops? Now you can order signed copies of BROKEN LIGHT from selected indies in the UK!

Click here for details!

This month I’m starting training for a new venture very much out of my comfort zone; and I’ll need all the help I can get!

Welcome to MOONWALK 2023: a marathon walk, starting on London’s Clapham Common, in aid of cancer charity Walk The Walk.

I’ll be walking on May 2oth – at midnight, in my bra – with my team, the Bernie Moonwalkers. We’re aiming to raise £10,000 for charity. If you’d like to support us, either by donating, sharing, or just cheering us on, you can do it right here. I’ll be updating regularly, and there might be a chance to win some merch, get exclusive news – or even join us on the night! The team at Orion are sponsoring 5 people to walk with us – so if you think you’d like to, click here to check it out!

I always start to feel more alive once February gets into double figures. And the ice is starting to move at last on some long-frozen projects, including a summer book I shelved at the start of winter, but which is beginning to show signs of green shoots again. I’m also doing more in-person events for the SOA and the ALCS, including attending the SOA Translation Prizes at the British Library last year. Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you for giving me the chance to discover so many amazing new authors. The #Storytime Band and I just did a gig in Ravenscourt, London, alongside the stellar John Hackett Band: we had a great time, it was a terrific audience, and it gave us the morale-boost we needed to start recording the new CD. Watch this space! BROKEN LIGHT now has a jacket design, and my publicity team at Orion is working on the book tour in May; I’ll be adding dates between now and then, so if you’d like to attend and event, check out if there’s one in your area. And I’m doing something else, too – something very much out of my comfort zone. I’m keeping quiet about it for the moment, but I’ll be free to talk about very soon.

And as Valentine’s Day approaches, and if, like me, you’d rather stay in and read a book, here are a couple of special offers:

FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and HOLY FOOLS, both for just 99p on Amazon Kindle UK. Enjoy!

And for fans of short stories and fantasy, do watch out for this book, in which my little story is in most excellent company…

On February 11th, 2023, the #Storytime Band and I are playing in London alongside the  John Hackett Band at Ravenscourt Arts, 7, Ravenscourt Rd. London W6 OUH.

Doors open 7pm: everybody welcome.

Stories, original music, and more!

Details here. 

If you’re feeling washed-out and in need of something to help you through till Spring, here’s a nice thing for readers in the UK: THE STRAWBERRY THIEF, on Amazon Kindle and on Kobo, for the special price of just 99p throughout the month of January…

Tempted? Buy it here!

New Year is just a social construct, and yet, like so many other social constructs, we choose to give it significance. We do this because it’s good for us to have a time to put bad memories behind us, and to create for ourselves new beginnings, new plans, the hope of happier times ahead. These things exist only because we choose to believe in them. We dream them into existence. We choose to hope, and to change, and to dream, and in dreaming, we change our reality.

So, don’t let anyone tell you that your dreams and your feelings don’t matter. They do. In dreaming, we change our world.

All power to your dreaming.

Happy Shedvent! And here’s a nice piece of news for the season – A NARROW DOOR is available for the whole of the month of December for the special price of 99p on UK Amazon Kindle…

Tempted? Buy it here…

People are always asking me what Vianne puts in her hot chocolate. The answer varies according to people’s tastes – but this is the classic recipe: rich, sweet and with just a kick of chilli.

For two people, you’ll need:

500ml (18fl oz) full-fat milk
½ a cinnamon stick
1 chilli, halved and deseeded
100g (3½oz) dark chocolate, broken into small, even-sized pieces
Unrefined brown sugar, to taste
A dash of Cognac, Amaretto, Cointreau or Tia Maria, to taste
100ml (3½fl oz) whipped double cream

½tsp cocoa powder, or grated chocolate

Heat the milk in a saucepan with the cinnamon stick and chilli. Bring to a shivering simmer.
Remove from the heat and add the chocolate to the milk. Blend until it melts. Add sugar to taste and leave to infuse for 10 minutes. Reheat to a simmer, strain and pour into mugs. Add a dash of your favourite liqueur for a more grown-up taste, and top with whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa or grated chocolate.

Chocolate chestnut truffles!

As you know, I’m highly light-sensitive, and the failing light always makes me crave certain kinds of food, so here’s another cheering recipe for those miserable days between Hallowe’en and Christmas, when the sun scarcely ever seems to rise, and even cooking seems too much of an effort.

These gorgeous truffles are easy to make – and nicely-wrapped, make terrific gifts!

And in case you need encouragement, here’s a sunny, cheery little video of me and Fran Warde in the kitchen together, talking ALL THINGS CHOCOLATE…

It’s getting to the darkest part of the year, and the creative part of me is finding it harder and harder to function. I combat my tendency to just hibernate on dull days with SAD lamps, comfort food and a promise to myself to take Vitamin D, exercise every day, and go for a walk whenever I can (natural light is so important, and even fifteen minutes outdoors makes an enormous difference to me).

For those of you who feel the same way about winter, I’ll be posting some of the things I find helpful on here over the next few weeks, so keep an eye on what’s going on. And to start us off, here’s my favourite chocolate mug cake recipe, from my friend, the chocolate chef David Greenwood-Haigh. It takes five minutes, it’s simple, and it’s the perfect brain food for those lightless, wintry days…

Members of the Society of Authors, we have our annual AGM on November 17th.

Usually, only a hundred or so members choose to attend the AGM, but this year is going to be different. This year, we face a well-organized attempt by a relatively small group of members to take over the AGM and push through two resolutions.

The meeting is virtual, so you can attend by Zoom. You can also vote on resolutions by proxy as long as you do so before the 15th.

Before we start, this post is mine, and not an official SOA statement. But –

As members of our union, there are a number of important resolutions for you to look at during this year’s AGM, which will help shape the future of the organization. I urge you to look at them all, and especially at resolutions 6 and 7, submitted by a group headed by some prominent gender critical members.

You’ve probably noticed that this year, there has been a great deal of attention given to our little group by a (mostly hostile) media. Much of it centres on me personally, and much of what they say is typically misleading, incomplete or untrue. Most of it has been driven by social media, where for several years I have been the target of abuse and attacks by gender critical people. I believe that the two following resolutions come as a direct result of this.

Resolution 6 is an attempt to get rid of me as Chair because of my “documented behaviour and comments”, which I take to mean my statements on social media in favour of trans rights, as well as my support of the three writers of colour who received racist abuse in the wake of the Kate Clanchy affair last year.

Resolution 7 includes a demand for a commitment to free speech, which, though it may seem reasonable in principle, in this context shows a basic lack of understanding of what the SOA already does for free speech, and implies that there is bias against certain groups within the organization.

First, let’s have a look at this accusation of bias, which runs through the whole proposal. Some of the people behind these two motions have made it clear that they think that my personal opinions, as tweeted on my personal account, somehow make me unable to exercise impartiality in my capacity as SOA chair.

Okay. Let’s look at my personal opinions. I have a lot of them, and I tweet a lot. I’m a Remainer. I’m left-wing. I’m pro-choice. I wear a mask in public places. I support trans rights. I’m afraid of climate change. I hate racism in all its forms. I really like musical theatre, and (full disclosure) once unfollowed someone on Twitter for saying they hated Les Mis. But the thing I keep being accused of bias over is – you guessed it – trans rights.

This harassment by the gender critical lobby has been going on for a long, long time. Here’s Graham Linehan calling for my resignation as early as October 2020: in spite of never having been an SOA member, and clearly having no idea what an SOA chair actually does.

Two years later, it’s still going on. If you look at the list of people proposing these motions (and if you take a glance at their Twitter profiles), you’ll find some prominent gender critical voices there. And all this has become part of a right-wing culture wars agenda that sees me as part of “a contamination by the woke”,  as this blog post (one of many) typifies.

The way I see it, this targeting of the SOA is part of a wider attempt to force the organization to abandon its impartiality and to pander to the demands of the right wing, via the gender critical movement – demands that, in this case, amount to removing a democratically elected Chair, and effectively giving preferential treatment to people with gender critical beliefs.

I don’t think that having openly pro-trans beliefs is a reason to stand down as Chair. I don’t think that anyone would insist on this if I held any other belief – if I were Jewish, for instance. But having a trans son, and supporting his rights, is enough in the eyes of these people to justify this unfounded claim – a claim that either by expression my opinions, or by not supporting theirs, I have somehow “allowed” gender critical authors to be cancelled or to lose work, because of their gender critical beliefs.

This is utter nonsense. My Twitter is a personal account, like the rest of my social media. I don’t bring my clashes on Twitter into SOA meetings, or expect the SOA to defend me against criticism or abuse. Nor should anyone else: it’s not within the remit of the SOA to supervise social media, or to comment when authors disagree.

What the SOA is very good at is resolving contractual complaints. But anyone needing this kind of help needs to ask the SOA for help, not complain on social media that they weren’t offered any. If my car gets a flat tyre, I don’t complain to the management of my local Toyota garage that they didn’t help me – unless I’ve actually been there first. I wouldn’t expect them to look on social media to find out if I needed repairs. Why? Because what I say on Twitter doesn’t concern my local Toyota garage. For a start, they probably don’t follow me on Twitter.  And I wouldn’t expect them to intervene if someone on Twitter complained that I’d left my Toyota blocking their drive, or if someone had left a rude message on the windscreen. Because – guess what? It isn’t their job. They’re a garage, not The Batman.

So, what do I actually do at the SOA? Well, I chair the Management Committee. We deal with finances and strategy, prizes and grants. We help direct policy and, with the help of the SOA staff, determine how best to serve the members. We are not a political party, though we do lobby politicians of all parties on issues that concern our members. We do not debate “what makes a woman” because the SOA has 12,000 members, including trans people and gender critical people, and we want to serve them all. The gender critical lobby has – or so it seems to me – consistently refused to understand this. I have been asked repeatedly to debate with them on Twitter over trans rights. I have been threatened over my refusal to sign a petition that I felt legitimized JK Rowling’s comments on gender. I have received death threats and abuse. I have been told that as Chair of the SOA I must engage with this debate, and then, when I have expressed opinions, have been told by the same people that I shouldn’t have said anything. But here’s the thing. Free speech is for all, even in the case of those with whom you disagree. And a democracy treats people equally, regardless of their status.

The gender critical lobby seems also not to understand this. It may have the support of some very powerful and well-connected people, but that doesn’t make their voices any more important than those of our other members. That’s why the SOA remains neutral in disagreements between individuals, whilst still supporting the free speech of everyone concerned. I’m very sure that if my opinion had swung towards the gender-critical side, no-one would be trying to claim that I was biased now. And I think that where there has been prejudice, it has been directed at me, for exercising my right to a belief that a very well-connected group of people in the media feel I simply shouldn’t hold.

Please don’t see this an an invitation to attack these people on social media. Whatever they may have said about me, whatever lies and smears they have used to make their case, I do not condone attacks or abuse in my name. If you feel there is a legitimate complaint to be made about anyone, then please do so via the SOA, according to their Dignity & Respect policy, not on Twitter.  Twitter can be ugly, and things can quickly get out of hand there.

When I was elected to the Management Committee, I promised to concentrate on promoting diverse voices and ensuring that the SOA was an inclusive, fair and welcoming environment for every kind of writer. This current attack on our democracy by a vocal group of ideologues not only threatens that promise, but uses up valuable resources of time, expense and energy that would be better spent dealing with the needs of our members.

If you agree, please consider voting against Resolutions 6 and 7, either in person at the AGM, or by proxy.

Here’s the link to register:  

And here’s a cat eating a cupcake.

Finally, Bonnie’s Kickstarter page for the Shed Calendar has gone live!

Bonnie has worked incredibly hard on this project, which includes: a Shed every month, plus some wonderful artwork from Bonnie and an unpublished short story from me. You’ll get this lovely 2023 calendar, plus the chance to score some additional merch, including signed postcards and some of Bonnie’s original artwork…

We have 29 days to raise sufficient funds to make this project happen!

Join the Kickstarter campaign here!

I’m just back from the fabulous Celsius festival of SFF in Aviles, Spain. I had the most marvellous time talking to fans, old friends (and new ones). Thank you to Diego, Jorge, Cristina and everyone from the festival for inviting me; to all the readers for your marvellous welcome, and to my friends and colleagues for being such fantastic company. I hope I get the chance to come back next year!

And I’ve just announced my new novel, BROKEN LIGHT, due out in summer 2023. Proofs will be available to media in autumn, but until then, here’s a taste of what’s to come…