Plashy Fen is launched

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all you lovely people who turned up for the launch of Plashy Fen last Saturday at Washingpool Farm Shop, Bridport.

There were lots of familiar faces as well as people I’d never met before.

Gorgeous George Clueless and Champagne Charlotte and me in the pumpkin-coloured top.

To be honest, it was all a bit overwhelming.

First through the doors was Carol, a People’s Friend reader, and her friend, Sandra, who came all the way up from Cornwall and stayed overnight to be at the launch. How amazing is that?

Carol, me and Sandra.

Carol not only brought her lovely self, she also gave me a beautiful card and a book of short stories about her neck of the woods. I’m very much looking forward to reading it.

Reaction to the novel has (in the main) been wonderful.

I think the influx of characters at the start of the book has been a bit of a roller coaster for some but I make no apologies for that – this is what moving into a new village can be like. Lots of neighbours clamouring for attention.

But as those readers ploughed on, they soon came to know and love Plashy Fen and its inhabitants, or so they tell me.

Here’s a review from a reader of my Maddie’s World column:

Every week when my People’s Friend magazine arrives I turn to Maddie’s World – Maddie Grigg’s article about life in Lush Places – so when I saw this book had been published I got it straight away. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about Plashy Fen and all the characters who live there. For me, it was a bit of a slow start but once I got into it I thought it was brilliant.

Why, thank you.

And here’s another, from someone who bought a paperback on Saturday:

 I finished your book on Monday, in fact I hardly put it down once I had started!

It is one of the best reads ever. Beautifully crafted, warm and full of mystery. I enjoyed every bit of it…Well done on a great triumph –and thank you.

I’m still bursting with pride at that one, which is dangerous because you know what pride comes before, and I’m just about to start a day’s creative writing course in The Shed of Dreams so it could all end in tears.

But anyway, thanks for all the encouragement and, as Winston Churchill once said, I will KBO.

Fiction, snobbery and a book launch

I’m busy practising my signature for the launch of my new novel, Plashy Fen, which happens this coming Saturday at Washingpool Farm Shop, on the north western outskirts of Bridport.

As I write fiction under my pen name, my signature can be anything I want it to be – but I do need to make sure it fits and looks right on the page.

I had a short story published in My Weekly magazine last week, which features one of the characters from Plashy Fen who, in the novel, is an elderly widow by the name of Beattie Dominey, who talks incessantly and unashamedly to her late husband.

In the My Weekly story, entitled A Feast for Michaelmas, Beattie is a young newlywed in 1959 who fears her goose may well and truly be cooked if she doesn’t stand up for herself very soon.

It’s the first short story I’ve ever submitted to a women’s magazine – one, because I have an innate fear of rejection and, two, because I’ve been such a snob over the years by dismissing short stories in popular magazines as being pulpable rather than palpable.

It’s taken me a long time to untie my prejudices and cast off the sneering voice of an old acquaintance who poured scorn on me landing a weekly column in a national magazine eleven years ago because it was The People’s Friend, which clearly didn’t measure up to her literary tastes.

I had been buoyed up by being emailed out of the blue by the editor who had seen my old blog online and told me: ‘I think you might just be the writer we’ve been looking for! I like your ability to write with humour about the minutiae of daily life, but with a touch of emotional depth, too.’

To be approached like this by the world’s longest-running weekly magazine for women is something which still makes me smile. Especially when D C Thomson also publishes the Beano.

Their publications reach real people. Lots of them.

There is so much snobbery around fiction. And I can’t stand pretentiousness, superiority and massive egos.

Something I saw recently on Instagram by writer Matt Haig stopped me in my tracks.

Yes. This.

It’s so true – there are books and genres for everyone.

I don’t know about you but I like all sorts of fiction and writers. I prefer coming-of-age stories set in small towns, fast-paced thrillers and exquisitely written prose by quiet writers like Elizabeth Strout, Anne Tyler and Ann Patchett in which universal truths and common humanity are found in the everyday and mundane.

And I like whip-smart, contemporary novels that make me laugh, science fiction by the likes of Ray Bradbury and Stephen King and classics such as The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy and, my all-time favourite, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald.

We’re all different but the main thing that connects us readers – and writers – is the very act of reading itself.

The luxury of immersing ourselves in a good book and being able to escape from all the dross life can sometimes serve up is just priceless.

So. here’s to happy reading and writing for all, whatever your preferences may be.

There is no such thing as good or bad taste – it’s just someone else’s.

And if you’re around Bridport way on Saturday, please pop in and say hello. There could be cake.

Paperback publication day

Plashy Fen is now available in paperback today.

Publication coincides with Michaelmas Day, one of the quarter days I write about in the novel:

Today, Maurice’s ghost is taking in the autumn sunshine. It is 29th September, Michaelmas Day, the Feast of Michael and All Angels, a day that sits on the edge of winter, the last date for the harvest to be in.

When Maurice was alive, he and Beattie used to celebrate the day with a fattened goose to protect themselves and the girls against financial hardship.

“Eat a goose on Michaelmas Day,  want not for money all the year.”

The ghost of Maurice Dominey is one of the many characters in Plashy Fen, a small village layered by the stories of its characters.

There’s put-upon Lindy Vickery, hard-as-nails estate agent Anna Arborio (Maurice’s elder daughter), the teenage triplets Merlin, Ralph and Billy and the Symes brothers who live in three separate caravans in far-flung corners of their field.

There’s a celebrity chef, a nice and not-so-nice pub landlord who, naturally, are bitter rivals, and a grief-stricken vicar questioning his calling.

Possibly too many characters to get your head round straight away, but stick with it, rural villages can be a bit like that until you get to know them.

Said one reviewer: “By the end, I felt that I knew the people of Plashy Fen. In fact, if I ever walked into the Raven’s Head and found them sitting at the bar, I’d happily buy them a pint—or a glass of wine—and join them.

“A warm, funny, poignant and beautifully observed novel. Five stars.”

You can order Plashy Fen from bookshops or Amazon. It’s also available on Kindle.

Mary Anning at Lyme Regis

This bronze statue of palaeontologist Mary Anning strides off towards the cliffs she once explored with great success at Lyme Regis, Dorset.

It was created by sculptor Denise Dutton and unveiled in 2022 on the anniversary of Mary’s birth in Lyme in May 1799.

The story behind the statue is very inspiring. It’s all down to a 11-year-old girl, Evie Swire, who started a campaign, with the help of her mum, for a monument to the 19th century scientist. The campaign highlighted the bias of UK statues of men to women (more than 85% men).

Despite false starts during the COVID-19 pandemic, a crowdfunding campaign was eventually launched. The Mary Anning Rocks group also sold T-shirts to raise money to commission a statue in honour of the scientist, whose discoveries in the Jurassic marine fossil beds at Lyme brought her to international attention and contributed to changes in thinking about prehistoric life and the Earth’s history.

Mary discovered the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton when she was just 12.

The statue was unveiled by Evie and Professor Alice Roberts.

It beautifully captures determined movement. The level of detail is astonishing.

It’s behind the Marine Theatre overlooking Black Ven.

September reviews

I’ve been a bit lax lately when it comes to reading books, being so caught up in promoting my own. (In case you didn’t know, Plashy Fen comes out in paperback on 29 September. As you can imagine, I’m very excited.)

I had been reading a doorstep of a novel, The Year of the Locust (2023) by Terry Hayes, and was finding it very easy to sink into its short chapters and fast pace.

However, I’m about an eighth of the way in and have decided to quit while I’m ahead. I don’t feel much engaged with the protagonist and there is more to life than ploughing through a big book just for the sake of it.

This spy thriller, published in 2023 is more up Mr Grigg’s street than mine, which is what I initially thought about Hayes’ debut I Am Pilgrim (2013) before I picked it up at a book swap a few years ago.

I couldn’t put it down, it was gripping.

My well-read friend, The Fragrant Mrs Putter, told me she felt the same, so I was in good company.

It still hasn’t been made into a film yet, which I find astonishing, although there are references online to Pilgrim being in production.

I’m about to embark on The Cuckoo and the Cuckquean (2025) by Patricia Román. The novel is about Spanish Suffragettes – a new subject for me, but it’s good to move out of one’s comfort zone every now and then.

I finally read Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure (1999) as part of research into one of my family stories and, although I still don’t very much like Hemingway as a man, it confirmed my view of Palin as an extremely engaging and talented writer.

While I haven’t been reading, I have been listening to quite a few podcasts.

I’m hooked on both the UK and the US versions of Goalhanger’s The Rest Is Politics, which are such ear openers when it comes to staying informed about the corridors of power and the strange things happening on planet Earth right now.

The BBC’s Disclosure Investigates series are really good. I’ve listened to two standout documentaries – Charmain And The Prophet {2026) and Matched With A Predator (2025). The programmes’ common link is the horrendous consequences of controlling behaviour by men over women.

To provide some light in the darkness, I’ve also watched The Magic Faraway Tree (2026), ostensibly a children’s film based on the book of the same name by Enid Blyton.

It was beautifully done, and so, so enjoyable, with the original story updated but still with a glorious, life-affirming fantasy at its heart.

Fearing I might have gone a bit soft in my old age, I looked up the reviews afterwards to see if the critics agreed with my verdict. They did, wholeheartedly.

We’ve also binge watched Last Tango In Halifax (2012-2020, BBC) – great, character-led drama which is down to the brilliant script of the show’s creator, Sally Wainwright, and the superb cast.

Now starting, rather late in the day, on Ted Lasso (2020-present, Apple TV) and enjoying it immensely.

Can’t wait for the new series of the BBC’s Small Prophets (2026) to appear on our television screens. And with Slow Horses (2022-present, Apple TV) flying out of the traps, telly just got a whole lot better.