Other guests include Susan Twist off of Doctor Who, Rob Shearman (writer of Dalek), Jonathan Carley (Big Finish's War Doctor), Mark Griffiths (BBC Books etc), and Georgia Cook and Fio Trethewey (also BBC Books and Big Finish and whatnot).
Tickets and further details here.
It's an illuminated, six-page piece covering Jean's life and career, and includes a few words from me about working with her on several Doctor Who audio stories, beginning with Home Truths.
There are some amazing photographs of Jean at the premiere of Return to Oz, care of Tricia Trozzi, as well as a feature on the press response to that movie and a checklist of merchandise. Thanks to Sarah K Crotzer for sending me a copy.
I've been involved in helping put it together, in my role as chair of the guild's Books Committee. Earlier this week, I was quoted by trade paper the Bookseller in its coverage of the free guide. Later this week, on 27 August, I'll be hosting a free online event about it later this week (see below for details).
It's likely to be my last job as chair, as my three-year stint comes to an end next month at the guild's AGM.
Full blurb for the guide and event details as follows:
The lives of real people and true stories have always provided inspiration for writers. But the practicalities of working with factual material – and the potential to upset an existing person (or their lawyer) – can leave writers feeling anxious.
Which is why WGGB has today (19 August 2025) launched a new free, online guide on working with factual material.
The guidelines cover how copyright law treats factual material and how writers can build relationships with their subjects. They also provide advice on how to avoid being accused of libel or defamation.
The guidelines have been produced by the WGGB Books Committee, but the advice and principles contained in them will also be useful for writers working in other craft areas such as film, TV, theatre or audio.
The guide includes answers to questions that the WGGB is regularly asked. For example:
When it comes to undertaking research and interviews, for example of subjects or specialists in the author’s chosen area, we have published an accompanying template ‘Right to release’ form (as a free download) which the writer can ask the interview subject to sign to confirm that they understand the purpose of the interview and which grants the writer the right to use their material.
Working with factual material guides writers through understanding the differences between libel and defamation, best practice to protect themselves against a legal case, and the implications of writer warranties and indemnities.
WGGB Books Chair Simon Guerrier said: “When it comes to working with factual material, there are clearly many areas in which writers want help and clarification — as WGGB has received numerous enquiries in the past few years.
“This clear, concise publication guides writers through what they need to know and includes some practical tips.
“I’m very grateful to everyone on the WGGB Books Committee and at the union for their hard work in putting these guidelines together.”
Working with factual material – come to our free event on 27 August
WGGB Books Chair Simon Guerrier will be offering some practical advice on this subject and discussing with guests (to be announced) the pitfalls of writing about real-life characters, events and issues, whether contemporary or historical.
Live captions will be available throughout. Please let us know when you register if you have any additional access needs.
5-6pm, 27 August
Online, via Zoom
Price: free
You can now listen to my talk, "The Unseen Terrance Dicks", and lots of the other contributions, as episodes of the Hamster with a Blunt Penknife podcast:
Target Book Club Part One on Apple, Podbean, Spotify
In our natter, we mention other works by Alan Moore. You might like to read the big essay I wrote for my MA on V for Vendetta.
The episode also mentions something that was announced on Saturday at the excellent Target Books Day: I am currently at work on a biography of Terrance Dicks, to be published by Ten Acre Films (who published by previous biography, David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television). More of all that anon.
Target Book Club takes place from 10 am on Saturday 19 July 2025 at the Abbey Centre, 34 Great Smith Street, London.
My 15-minute talk, "The Unseen Terrance Dicks", will include some newly discovered facts about the most prolific of the Target authors. "Secrets from his files," says James. Yes, indeed.
I'm reading a lot of Terrance's work at the moment and blogged on his novelisation of The Wheel in Space just last week. You may also enjoy this 2015 interview I conducted with Terrance, in which he told me - very amiably - that I was talking nonsense.
Join Osman Yousefzada, an internationally renowned artist and writer.He will discuss his Memoir The Go-Between reviewed by Stephen Fry as ‘one of the greatest childhood memoirs of our time’. The book is narrated through the eyes of a child, trying to make sense of the adult world.
His visual art practice, has been shown internationally and his works explore themes of rupture, migration, intergenerational tacit knowledge, and these conversations take forms in sculpture, textiles and installation work. Yousefzada says ‘he copies his mother to become an artist.
Hosted by: Simon Guerrier, writer, producer, author of Sherlock Holmes - The Great War (Titan, 2021) and chair of the Books Committee for the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.
ETA: I made some notes in advance of the interview and present them here, revised to incorporate some of what he told me.
Osman is roughly my age, born in Birmingham to migrant parents from Pakistan. His mother could not speak English; his parents were both illiterate in English and their mother tongue of Pashto. The Go-Between movingly tells the story of Osman's childhood and adolescence, as part of a strictly observant Muslim household and community in Birmingham in the 1980s. It’s honest and insightful, often funny and sometimes harrowing. I found it compelling.
Particularly effective is the way it’s almost all told from his childhood perspective, as he understood things (or didn't) at the time. In this way, he is direct witness to evocative sights, textures and flavours - and to threats of violence inside and outside the home - but takes all these things as they come, without judgment. When, for example, he describes a sleepover with other boys where they gang up and pull down his trousers. He describes the adults taking this seriously but doesn't quite understand why. We, as readers, do.
That’s not to say this memoir is uncritical. We can, I think, infer what he feels now in many cases. More than that, in telling this story of an insular way of living, Osman is also constantly making connections. For example, one chapter tells about about girls who “come of age” (reach puberty) and are withdrawn from school and view, and in some cases sent away to Pakistan, as dictated by their fathers and the other men of the community. Then Osman, who is not allowed to watch TV and rarely looks at a newspaper, spots headlines about Margaret Thatcher.
“She herself had been sent away, from her house at Number 10, by her very own men.” (p. 224)
Osman is a shrewd observer, the memoir pepper with vivid, telling detail. He's also had access - for a time - to a rarely glimpsed hidden world. His original title for the book was “God and Jelly” but I think The Go-Between is a better fit. So much of what he describes here is a world of strictly observed binary divisions: Muslim and non-Muslim, immigrant and born-here, white and non-white, male and female, the rules in the house and for navigating outside...
Near the end of the book, he describes a formative time as an art student in London, going out to clubs with his friend Emma, where he, “saw genders become fluid” (p. 340). Throughout this story, he has been fluid, somewhere between the two binaries - a boy among the girls and women, a child of his parents’ community and the world outside it. But he’s not alone: other children must navigate the nuances between these two worlds, there are his mother’s friends who wear lipstick or go without a veil, whose husbands - gasp! - serve them tea.
By conveying the vibrant colour and texture of his early life, he demonstrates that none of us live in black and white.
I'm one of the punters involved, asked about such things as The Joy of Sex and the Doctor's reacting vibrator (yes, really).
The Savages sees the departure of companion Steven Taylor, played by Peter Purves. You can find out what happened to him next in the audio stories The War to End All Wars, The Founding Fathers and The Locked Room.
Shirin will read her book Zahra’s Blessing - A Ramadan Story, and we'll talk about that and her other work. There will be an opportunity for attendees to ask questions.
The blurb for the event says:
Shirin Shamsi is an award-winning author of children’s books. Born and raised in the United Kingdom to Pakistani immigrants, she moved to the USA with her husband, over thirty years ago, where they have raised three children. Now empty nesters, they live with their cat Bramble in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.
With a background in Early Childhood, children have always been Shirin’s priority and focus. She writes with the hope that every child will see themselves represented in books. Having lived on three continents, Shirin sees herself as a global citizen. She feels passionately about sharing stories that represent global themes and diversity; stories that inspire curiosity, compassion, kindness, and empathy.
This is the third Macfest I've been part of. Last year I interviewed Seti Atta about her novel A Bit of Difference. The year before, I interviewed Fatima Manji about her book Hidden Histories.
ETA that the video of my interview with Shirin Shamsi is now up on YouTube:
As I say, a key issue is the ability to identify credible sources. Ironically - as if I've tempted fate by speaking out - I've recently learned that something I state as fact in my 2023 biography David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television, and which I based on what seemed to be sound evidence, isn't true. More on that, and a full correction, soon.
The episode includes an interview with me, struggling to remember whatever it was I was thinking at the time - other than "Eeeeeeeee I'm writing a book!"
Last year, I spoke to the same podcast about my 2007 Doctor Who novel The Pirate Loop and, separately, my new book Doctor Who - The Time Travelling Alamanac. And the year before, I spoke to them about David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television.
I spoke to Kenny last year about another of my books, David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television; that podcast is available here and you can still buy the book.
(The photograph above right shows two copies of the Time-Travelling Almanac plus my copy of Kate Orman's 1994 Doctor Who novel The Left-Handed Hummingbird.)
Joining host Richard Smith are astronomy writer Giles Sparrow, Rick aka @brickpandorica and me.
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| Issue 43 |
Nancy says:
The Evolving Landscape of AI in the Arts
My guest this week is Simon Guerrier, a writer and producer who has written numerous books related to Doctor Who, produced five documentaries for BBC radio, and more than 70 audio plays for Big Finish Productions, as well as comics and short stories. He also chairs the Books Committee for the Writers' Guild of Great Britain. Simon talks with me about how he got his start in writing and producing—including just what a producer does—the value of negotiating arrangements that work in everyone’s best interest, the impact of new tools like ChatGPT on creative careers and the creative process, his new book about television pioneer David Whitaker, and more.
Deola Bello works for a company in London that audits charities and NGOs around the world. She arranges one assignment so that she'll be back in Nigeria in time for the fifth anniversary of the death of her father. But facing her extended family means a whole load of questions - about what she's doing with her life, what she wants and where she belongs...
Yesterday, I interviewed author Sefi Atta about this 2013 novel for an online event hosted by Macfest - ETA the full interview is now up on YouTube. Sefi is a prolific author - of novels, short stories and plays (for both radio and the stage) - but chose this novel as the focus of our discussion.
She told me that she'd consciously endeavoured to avoid the cliches and stereotypes she'd observed at the time of writing, as expressed in the novel by Deola in a conversation with a writer friend.
"African novels are too exotic for her. Reading them, she often feels they are meant for Western readers, who are more likely to be impressed." (p. 190)
These readers seem to be drawn to tales of catastrophe, as the writer friend responds:
"The more death the better. It is like literary genocide. Kill off all your African characters and you're home and dry. They certainly don't want to hear from the likes of me, writing about trivialities like love." (p. 191).
Deola counters that,
"Love is not trivial. ... Love is epic." (p. 192)
For all we might hear, repeatedly, of the danger of "armed robbers" while Deola is in Nigeria, that threat never materialises. In fact, the only armed conflict here is the protests in London to the ongoing Gulf War (the novel set in 2003). There's corruption in Nigeria but that dovetails with the way Deola is treated, belittled and overlooked by her employers in London, who express disappointment that her report based on first-hand experience is not what they wanted to hear.
Instead, the focus here is on the personal: Deola's friendships, her family, a man she meets in Nigeria and what happens between them. In the course of all this, she's wrestling with her sense of self - her identity and future. For all the backdrop of Gulf War (in London) and poverty, AIDS crisis and corruption (in Nigeria), it's a warm, funny novel full of sharp observations because it's all told from Deola's perspective; her character, concerns and passions set the tone.
We recorded this at the Gallifrey convention in LA last weekend and you can hear me being constantly distracted by the extraordinary spectacle of people in ever more inventive costumes milling about us. At one point, even the unflappable Jason is left speechless by the Sisterhood of Karn assembling beside us for a photo.
As well as Timelash, we also discuss the talk I gave on the history of television prior to Doctor Who, my book David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television and what I did on Whotopia.
My talk on Television Before the TARDIS went well, and - in what's becoming a tradition - I was then interrogated by Steven from podcast Radio Free Skaro. Steven also spoke to Shaun Lyon (programme director of the convention) and Peter Harness (who is launching Constellation today), so I feel in very august company.
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| Standing: John Peel, Jeremy Hoad, Colin Brake, Nick Walters, Daniel Blythe, Peter Anghelides, Steve Cole, Simon Guerrier, Paul Magrs, Martin Day, Mark Morris, Andrew Hunt, Simon Messingham, Paul Ebbs. Seated: Mags L Halliday, Robert Dick, Steve Lyons, Nigel Robinson |
