Kristen Bailey

My Christmas Blog Party concludes today with a beautiful post by food writer and journalist, Jonathan Phang. I've only ever known Jonathan as Joey - his parents, Roy and Maureen were good friends of my father. They all hailed from Guyana, Roy and dad were both dentists and I remember many a Sunday afternoon spent in their house in Isleworth enjoying their company, tucking into Maureen's phenomenal chicken salad and her amazing pepperpot: a Guyanese stew flavoured with cinna

I met Tara about eighteen months ago at a Guardian Masterclass in London. Amongst a sea of very varied writers, Tara and I seemed to be in a similar writing place: we had both started writing (seriously) after the birth of our firstborns, and had both experienced about a decade of writing, agent hunting and further childbearing before our novels found their final homes. About to be published by small independents, we met at the Guardian offices near Kings Cross and sat thro

Sometimes you just meet someone and you know. I met the lovely Cheryl at a book launch a couple of months ago. She's a writer of crime fiction and a fellow Accenteer. Anyways, talk turned to how we handled public readings and appearances....this is when Cheryl told me she practised in her front room, talking to a life-size cut out of Daryl Dixon. Who the hell is Daryl Dixon? Well, Google it...Daryl's only my TV husband! That's how I instantly knew she was a little bit c

This author malarkey can sometimes feel like quite a lonesome experience so it's always a real joy to meet other local writers. I met the lovely Harri last month at the launch for 'Second Helpings' through a mutual friend. Like me, her debut novel, 'Inside The Cuckoo's Nest' was published earlier in the year. It's a thrilling, taut tale of the dysfunctional O'Rourke family - a really well-crafted novel that I'd truly recommend you put on your Christmas wish lists. Very happy

I like meeting writing kindred spirits and Christina falls under that category - we're both from the Surrey/North Hampshire area, published by small independents and are juggling writing with little kiddies. I would say Christina is far more accomplished at doing it than I....not only is she a novelist but also a prolific blogger and book reviewer. A pleasure to meet her at my book launch last month and have her here today... Thank you, Kristen, for having me on your blog. I

So....finally, someone has bought some alcohol to the party! Yay! And double yay for the lovely Jackie Kabler who's blogging with me today. I had the pleasure of meeting Jackie in October at the launch of her second book, The Deadline. It was a fab event because up until that point I'd not really met many Accent folk... so I was truly grateful to have been given the chance to meet lots of talented authors and network with some fantastic book bloggers. A warm festive welcom

It's all about the Accenteers for the next couple of days and today it's lovely to welcome Karen to my blog: a fellow writer of contemporary women's fiction. She also writes children's fiction and YA and I'm really happy to see she's a great advocate of creative writing and reading in schools....with little ones myself, this is always a great inspiration to see a writer so heavily involved in promoting the arts. A pleasure that she's dropped by today... Thank you for inviti

Jenny Kane is a fellow Accenteer (that's a new word now, it's official...) but also an amazingly prolific blogger and writer. I am totally in awe and a little bit jealous that she gets to write under lots of different identities, and across so many genres including contemporary women's fiction. It must be a real joy to experiment and delve into lots of different types of storytelling. A real pleasure to welcome her here today.... A Pudding Wish Hello everyone - and an early

I'm not sure I can write about Shirley without getting a bit emosh. I first met her back in 2002. We were both field researchers who had been paired together in a project run by Southampton University. It meant we cultivated a friendship sat in my rusty Micra usually in traffic on the North Circular/M25/both usually chatting about anything and everything, and warding off rogue car window washers. We both loved reading, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and have been firm friends e

I first met Vikki via the awesome power of social media. She had read a short story I'd written for Mslexia magazine, found me on Facebook and wrote me a lovely message to say how much she'd enjoyed it. When you're starting out in writing and don't really have that much faith in your abilities then it's these messages which keep you going. We became FB friends after this and I delighted in hearing of her success in YA fiction. I'm not sure if she knows this either but she