I have appeared as a speaker at a number of literary festivals including The International Agatha Christie Festival, Bournemouth Writing Festival and the Dickensian Christmas Festival in Rochester, as well as speaking at numerous libraries, independent bookshops and museums across the country and I love the chance to talk about stories with other book-lovers.

Talk: I’m dreaming of a dark Christmas

At Christmas we love heart-warming stories of love and magic and acts of kindness, like ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life… but we also love reading about people being brutally murdered. More and more Christmas crime novels are published each year and the fascination dates back to Agatha Christie, to when Victorians told ghost stories around the fire on Christmas Eve – and even before then. In this talk I look at the strange, and often horrifying origins of our dark midwinter folklore, tracing it back to prehistoric times, and speculate on what this says about us!

Talk: Following in the footsteps of Dickens

It takes a brave person to try to follow in the footsteps of the master storyteller! In this talk I explore why his characters and stories are still so relevant today and how, when I decided to write A Scrooge Mystery I ended up literally following in his footsteps around London, Rochester and beyond, learning about the great author – and myself.

Workshop: Let’s Make a Murder

Ever wanted to write your own murder mystery but not known where to start? In this fun workshop I look at all the ingredients that go into making a good detective novel and participants can create their very own heinous crime, dodgy line-up of suspects, flawed detective and a range of clues and motives. By the end of the session they will have the bare bones of their own detective story to work with! Unlike the schools workshop of the same name, this also focuses on genre and market as well as the essentials of writing the book itself.

Workshop: Jump around – writing from multiple perspectives across multiple timelines

All my books contain multiple timelines and narratives from different points of view. The technique draws readers into a story creating intriguing mysteries within the plot. But you have to watch out because it’s easy to make your reader (and yourself) dizzy and confused!

This fun workshop encourages participants to experience the same event from three different points of view, and flashing back to an earlier character experience unlocking different levels of the story as we go.

Workshop: Creating love-to-hate characters

I love creating flawed, messy protagonists and in this workshop I examine why these characters are so often the ones who stay with us. Participants complete a series of exercises to create their own fully-formed person, warts-and-all, and then face them with their own worst nightmare!