Stephanie Cage - Writer

Last week I asked what readers would like to ask Alex, the hero of Desperate Bid, and this week, as promised, I put your questions to him. So here, in order of posting, are the questions and his replies: Why do you like Sarah? What makes her special? Sarah’s special because I’ve never met anyone else quite like her. At work she’s super-professional and very impressive, but she can also be really funny and gentle, and she has a good ear for music and likes some very cool bands, which I wouldn’t have expected from someone who seems so serious. She’s pretty, kind, and full of surprises, so life is never dull with her around. In an ideal world, what would your perfect date with Sarah be? I think our first real date was just about perfect – we went to hear a great new band in a local pub and just talked and listened to music all evening, then walked home together in the rain. OK, maybe the perfect date wouldn’t have the rain, although it did give us a good excuse to ‘get out of those w...

I got lucky this week... no, not like that! I won a competition on the website of the lovely Christina Courtenay by sharing my favourite ChocLit hero - Ratty, from Sue Moorcroft 's 'Starting Over'. So now I'm rushing downstairs whenever the postie arrives, in the hope that today will the day my parcel of books arrives. I can't wait to read Christina's 'Trade Winds' or Sue's latest, 'All That Mullarkey', both of which had been on my wish list, but hadn't quite made it to the top yet. Now they have! Anyway, having been reminded how much fun it is to get something for nothing, I thought it would be nice to share some luck. This week's blog post was going to be a character interview with my hero, Alex, from Desperate Bid . Now it comes with an added bonus... post a comment with the question you'd like me to have asked, and next week I'll answer some of questions. And the person who posts my favourite question will get a fr...

If you’ve been following my blog or facebook posts lately, you’ll know that I’m lucky enough to have been featured several times on Sine FM’s book show, ‘ Book It .’ One of the fun things about appearing on the show is having to choose a song to go along with the interview or story. Sometimes the choice is obvious – naturally, I couldn’t resist the 'Habanera' from Bizet's 'Carmen' to go along with my Spanish love story. Other times nothing too obvious springs to mind, and then I get to have fun playing with lyrics, titles and obscure connections – that’s how I ended up with Gerry Rafferty’s haunting song ‘Baker Street’ to accompany a review of ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time’, in which the protagonist, Christopher, is a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories. It’s also always interesting to see what music other writers pick to accompany their stories. Some people write to music and pick their favourite writing music for the show, while othe...

I've just returned from a wonderful trip to Dublin - the inspiring home of all kinds of fabulous folklore and literary delights, including the bizarre National Leprechaun Museum and the almost too-informative Writers' Museum . I'm hoping at some point to get to work on a folklore-inspired paranormal in the vein of Helen Scott Taylor 's delightful 'The Magic Knot', but first I'm looking forward to preparing a piece on Literary Dublin for Book It . On my doormat when I got back was a second treat: a copy of 'Romance Matters', complete with pages of photos and conference reports. Thanks again to everyone who made the conference so wonderful, especially as always Jan Jones and Roger Sanderson . Coming back to reality after a holiday can be a bit of a let-down, so it was nice to get back to this reminder of a wonderful weekend. More on Dublin later, but first I must finish unpacking!

I've just been reliving the delights of the Romantic Novelists' Association Conference by reading the fascinating session reports on the RNA Conference Page . I've reported on the panel discussion 'Writing for the American Market', and you can also find out about all sorts of writerly subjects, from planning and research to submitting to specific publishers, like Samhain. If you didn't make it to the conference in Greenwich, this page is definitely the next best thing.

As always, this year's conference was wonderful. Met old friends, made new ones, and the icing on the cake was that my story, 'Bluebell Day', got an honourable mention in the Elizabeth Goudge Competition, judged by Katie Fforde.

Oh, and did you catch my first EVER review? http://hea-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/06/review-desperate-bid-by-stephanie-cage.html