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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

What is YA fiction? Learning from Paula Rawsthorne and Dorothy Winsor

29/7/2019

14 Comments

 
Around this time last year, I was 10,000 words short of finishing the first draft of a dystopian novel provisionally entitled Snowflake, but failed to meet my overambitious target  of getting it done before my “summer break”. Almost a year on, although I’ve done a fair amount ofsome editing, I still haven’t written those final scenes.
 
Aside from the usual dose of self-doubt, two things have held me back: one about plot, the other about genre. How do I get my characters in and out of the cave? With a fourteen-year-old narrator, ought I to position this novel as YA?

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14 Comments

Family gatherings: Grace’s Table & Death Is Hard Work

27/7/2019

4 Comments

 
Two novels – the first set in Australia, the second in Syria – in which a family marks a milestone. While in the first it’s to celebrate a birthday in a city troubled by nothing more than a refuse workers strike and in the second it’s a burial in a war zone, I found both to be honest and unflinching portrayals of today’s world, and how we got here.

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4 Comments

Celebrating another book birthday: Sugar and Snails turns four

23/7/2019

3 Comments

 
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One advantage of getting a new car on the day I published my first novel, is that I’ll always remember when it’s due its MOT. And taking the car for its MOT means I easily remember my book birthday. So what’s happening as my baby turns four? Read on for an interview with one of the minor characters thanks to one of Craig Boyack’s alter egos and an update on revamping the blurb.


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Three-handers between Britain and the Indian subcontinent: Dignity & The Runaways

21/7/2019

4 Comments

 
As my next novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, has three point-of-view characters, I’m always curious to see how others handle three-handers. But that’s not the main reason I chose to read these two novels. Both are set against the backdrop of the tangled web of history tying the Indian subcontinent with Britain. The first links the dying days of the Raj to a British-born woman of Bengali heritage settled in Wales. The second brings characters from Karachi, London and Portsmouth to the deserts of war-torn Iraq.

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Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo

16/7/2019

2 Comments

 

What does it mean to be a woman in contemporary Britain? What does it mean to be female, black and queer? Having published a collection of short stories on the theme of identity and already being a fan of the author’s writing, and even having attended one of her workshops, I knew I was going to like this, but it’s hellish tricky to review.

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2 Comments

Systemic infanticide: The Woman in the White Kimono & Remembered

9/7/2019

2 Comments

 
It’s a touchy subject, understandably, but I think there are ‘good’ psychological reasons by some women kill their babies. But the mothers in these two novels would very much have liked to have kept theirs had circumstances allowed. In the first, set in a bruised post-war Japan, Naoko is sent to an extremely dodgy maternity home when she becomes pregnant by an American sailor. In the second, set between 1860 and 1910, the women on a Maryland plantation will do anything to avoid their children growing up as slaves.

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A meadow of our own

5/7/2019

10 Comments

 
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When we moved to this house over twenty years ago, I was most excited about the garden. Although I’d previously worked an allotment, I’d never had custody of shrubberies and trees. That first winter, we cleared a patch of ground for ten raised vegetable beds and another for fruit bushes, fenced-in to keep out the birds. Along with that and creating a pond and patio, we didn’t pay much attention to the grass.

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10 Comments

Every picture paints a story

1/7/2019

6 Comments

 
Although I’m generally more articulate in words than visuals, sometimes the balance swings the other way. Still playing catch-up a busy week and weekend, and with a few things to share before I can fully embrace a new week and new month, I’ve gone for an image-heavy post today. First up, is the gorgeous cover of my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, about a woman who has kept her past identity secret for thirty years, which is battling with nine others on cover wars. If you can spare a moment, please follow the link and vote for the one you prefer.
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    Free ebook: click the image to claim yours.
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    Available now
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    The poignant prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home
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    Find a review
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    Fictional therapists
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    About Anne Goodwin
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    My published books
    entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice
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    My third novel, published May 2021
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    My debut novel shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize
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    My second novel published May 2017.
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    Short stories on the theme of identity published 2018
    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

    Underneath Underneath
    reviews: 24
    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

    Becoming Someone Becoming Someone
    reviews: 8
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.56)

    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
    reviews: 4
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

    2022 Reading Challenge

    2022 Reading Challenge
    Anne has read 2 books toward their goal of 100 books.
    hide
    2 of 100 (2%)
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    Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.  
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    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
    reader, writer,

    slug-slayer, tramper of moors, 
    recovering psychologist, 
    struggling soprano, 
    author of three fiction books.

    LATEST POSTS HERE
    I don't post to a schedule, but average  around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), 
    some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on my WIPs and published books.  

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