“Make no mistake, this was in every way a late night hold up as she robbed me of my breath and wounded my heart with her smile.”
My story Worry-Free Windows, is all about chance encounters and the chemistry and sparks of connection that can happen when strangers chat over the phone, as they discover not only a mutual rapport but eventually love.
This gem of a book is available for free on bookfunnel.
(And while you’re at it why not check out LesFic Eclectic Volume One.)
Come say hello and maybe buy a book. Hot off the press copies of Love’s Portrait will be available before general release! *£10.00*
If you can’t make it but would like to purchase a copy of Love’s Portrait please contact me direct (postage and packing will apply).
[I will also bring with me a few copies of Highland Fling and Girls Next Door.]
The tenth States of Independence takes place on Saturday 23 March 2019 at Clephan Building, De Montfort University, Leicester. 10.30am – 4.30pm. Free entry!
Workshops | Readings | Panels | Seminars | Book launches
I am delighted to be a part of this wonderful anthology of poetry and prose celebrating women’s loves, lives and landmarks.
Fourteen women have contributed to this anthology. We share our experiences of love and life … and the landmarks that mark our progress through our lives … in our own very varied styles, using poetry and prose.
We want to tell you how … contains deeply heartfelt, pain-fully honest, and beautifully written pieces of writing. For those who have ever lived with hope or regret, you will find your own story amongst these pages. —Clare Summerskill
Anna Larner – Author of Highland Fling, Hooper Street and Love’s Portrait.
Finalist in the 2019 Foreword INDIES Book of The Year, 2019 Rainbow Awards and 2018 Golden Crown Literary Society Awards.
Featured in women.com, DIVA magazine, Gscene magazine, AfterEllen (Top Ten Summer Reads of 2017) and Publishers Weekly.
Finding the way in is at the heart of everything isn’t it?
Be it finding the way in to a confusing car park or a poorly signposted building. Or indeed finding your way in to establishing the common ground of a friendship or perhaps most importantly to the heart of the one you love.
Finding the way in is not only at the heart of life, it is at the heart of writing. It is that moment when a writer’s creativity sparks, igniting an imagined scene or character or dialogue. It is where the story begins.
I remember reading an interview with author Nancy Garden explaining how she found her way in to writing Annie on My Mind with a single line of dialogue.
“One rainy day…the words ‘It’s raining, Annie’ popped into my head. I know it sounds weird, but something told me that at last this might be the beginning of the book, although I didn’t know who was saying ‘It’s raining’ or who Annie was. But nonetheless that was how Annie on My Mind was born.” 1
Nancy’s explanation resonated with me as my debut novel Highland Fling began as much with a line of dialogue as with the setting of the Scottish Highlands. I could hear my main character Eve saying tenderly to her lover Moira, “You can touch me if you want”. These few words began a paragraph of writing, which then became a page, which eventually developed into a novel.
In a similar way my short story “Hooper Street“ in the anthology Girls Next Door: Lesbian Romance became the destined home for a phrase that had loitered in my head, potent yet aimless: “It was a Tuesday when…” The line now continues “I first met Abbie.” “Hooper Street“ had already been loosely drafted before those homeless words gave the story the purpose and orientation it needed. It peculiarly felt like those five words were fated to belong in the story, but that at some point they had been separated from it, like a dream half forgotten and then suddenly fully remembered.
For sometimes ideas, words, and images conjured by the imagination are so fleeting, that the writer is left chasing the memory of something, constantly editing and refining, working to get as close as possible to the perfect creative form just out of reach.
Despite the writer’s efforts to capture their imagination onto a page and to craft the perfect story, the ultimate meaning of a work lies with the reader. After all, the words and images that connected the story to the writer will not be the same words and images that connect the story to the reader.
All a writer can do is guide the reader in the direction we hope they will travel. But in the end, as it should be, the joy is the discoveries you make for yourself, the satisfaction of finding your own way in.
You will find me, should you wish, reading from Highland Fling and “Hooper Street“ and chatting more about writing at Gay’s The Word Bookshop, London, on 13th July, and at L Fest, Loughborough on 22nd July.
I look forward to seeing you then.
p254, A Conversation with Nancy Garden, interview with Kathleen Horning, Annie on My Mind, 2007 Edition, FSG
Sometimes the most intriguing girls are right next door—BFFs, ex-girlfriends, new girls in town, party girls, study mates, team mates, and sexy strangers. All it takes is a night out, the right moment, or an accidental kiss to discover what’s been there all along—the perfect girl for a love that lasts a lifetime. Best-selling romance authors tell it from the heart—sexy, romantic stories of falling for the girls next door.
Poetry Reading at Polari, Shout Festival, mac Birmingham 2016
On Reflection
If we were to meet again, I would say
sorry today, for then, when mad with love,
deranged with passion, all reason astray,
I cried ‘I love you!’ Three words – not enough.
So I left flowers to wilt at your door,
composed mixed tapes, wrote odes, baked cakes, your name
on my lips, in my brain. ‘Be mine’ I implored,
as I failed exams, missed deadlines, endured pain.
I lost sleep, got sick, felt weak, refused to
see sense – still convinced that you could be mine.
And through it all, silent, wise and kind, you
knew the one answer for me would be time.
You were so gentle with your rejection.
Yes, I can see that now, on reflection.
‘On Reflection’ has been published by Paradise Press as part of We want to tell you how… a wonderful anthology of poetry and prose celebrating women’s loves, lives and landmarks.
‘We want to tell you how … contains deeply heartfelt, pain-fully honest, and beautifully written pieces of writing. For those who have ever lived with hope or regret, you will find your own story amongst these pages.’ —Clare Summerskill
ISBN 978-1-904585-89-3
‘On Reflection’ has also been published by Leicester University’s Centre for New Writing in a pamphlet and online.
ISBN 978-1-9997526-2-0
Anna Larner – Author of Highland Fling, Hooper Street, Love’s Portrait and Highland Whirl.
Finalist in the 2019 Foreword INDIES Book of The Year, 2019 Rainbow Awards and 2018 Golden Crown Literary Society Awards.
Featured in women.com, DIVA magazine, Gscene magazine, and Publishers Weekly.