Sally Ann Melia @sallyannmelia - Tumblr Blog

The Ballad of the Pink Flamingo

by S A Melia

“Mum!”

It was a two-meter-tall, candy-pink inflatable flamingo

and it sat squashed and sad-looking in the high street window.

“She does not belong there,” Hazel told me.

She’s ten but she’s wise, so I agreed.

We walked with purpose into the shop.

“Sixty-nine pounds,” the till girl told us.

“Oh dear, we can’t afford that,” I told Hazel.

“No, we can’t…

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Book Review: The Farm by Joanne Ramos

Published: 07-05-2019 Format: Hardback Edition: 1st Extent: 336 ISBN: 9781526605252 Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing Dimensions: 234 x 153 mm RRP: £12.99 Online price: £11.69

Nestled in the Hudson Valley is a sumptuous retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, private fitness trainers, daily massages—and all of it for free. In fact, you get paid big money—more than you’ve ever dreamed of—to…

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Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Machines Like Me Ian McEwan Cape, pp.306, £18.99 Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding.

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time…

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Driverless in 140 characters When the #driverless network is hacked, Paps, Lettie's last relative, survives thanks to an x-military #AI…

Farnham Flash Festival 2019

The Farnham Flash Fiction Competition is co-ordinated and facilitated by Creative Catalogues and Sally Dickson. Congratulations Winner: Our Father’s Favourite Poet was W.B. Yeats by Alison Woodhouse, First Runner-up: Going To The Beach – Blue Pig’s Story by Mary Bevan, Second Runner-up: Jess and Tom by Julie Evans Best Flash Fiction featuring Farnham: A Familiar Face by Lisa Hart Farnham…

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Driverless in 125 words

Universal income will be necessary over time if AI takes over most human jobs @ElonMusk 15 Jun 2018

Human drivers will be outlawed within ten years @ ElonMusk 17 July 2017

Lettie

hates being England’s Last Trucker, but when she needs cash to save her grandfather’s life, she accepts a dangerous contract to resupply refugees trapped in the AI wars of Ukraine. Her journey takes her through…

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#driverless

SOLO – The New Star Wars movie Today is May 4th, which technically makes it Star Wars Day. Yes, you can argue that every day is now some variation on Star Wars Day, but I digress.

Black Panther – the best film of the year so far

The New Star Wars Trailer – counting the days…

Five reasons why we all love Princess Leia.

Reason 1. Leia was brave

From the moment we first see Leia, as the leader of the Rebel force fleeing with the secret plans, she is an icon of heroism. A heroine reminiscent of the female undercover agents of the French resistance. Willing to give her life, even though she knows the men who chase her will not flinch from taking it.

I loved her because she was not a damsel in distress, she did…

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Book Review: Bloodmark Trilogy by Aurora Whittet

Here is a trilogy that grabs you by the heartstrings and keeps you reading, while barely drawing breath or stopping for meals. I am not a great fan of vampires or werewolves, but this is a fantastic story of love and loss. The relationships between Grey and Ashling throbbed through the pages and kept me glued to my kindle. I was on their side from start to finish.

Characterisation is to the fore…

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Characters lead the way by Aurora Whittet

The Bloodmark Saga started from a single scene in my mind. I saw Ashling standing at the final battle scene. I saw her flame red hair in the wind, I heard her voice and I saw the look on her face. I knew who she would become in my series, but I didn’t know who she was at the beginning. So I spent a year doing character development on each of my main characters.

I named them, gave them extensive…

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Spam or Promotion - how to promote your book on Twitter

Spam or Promotion – how to promote your book on Twitter

Just a very quick email, to say I am promoting Guy Erma and the Son of Empire this weekend on Twitter. Yes, after months in the doldrums, I decided it was time to try and get some new readers, and hopefully a few reviews for Guy Erma and the Son of Empire.

I did not have much money after my summer holiday, so all of my promotional activity has to be free, so the options I have include:

+ Mailing…

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Oct 2, 16 - Have you ever lost your novel?

Oct 2, 16 – Have you ever lost your novel?

The day I lost my novel

So last week some of you remember I was at GollanczFest, and I wrote about the authors and books I had seen there in a previous letter. But I also met a fellow writer who was in despair because the hard drive on which she had been saving her novel had corrupted, and she had lost all her work.

My heart went out to her, because very nearly the same thing happened to me,…

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Book Review: The Ship by Antonia Honeywell

I met Antonia at #GollanczFest 2016 and was inspired by her tale of how she won her first publishing deal for this her fifth novel: The Ship. This is, however, an independent review since I only purchased the book a few days later.

This is a new take on the many tales of a dystopian future, and also a coming of age tale as a sixteen-year-old girl as she lives through an era of cataclysmic…

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#Antonia Honeywell #the Ship

Book Review: The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone

I met the author Ezekiel Boone at #GollanczFest and joked with him that we were both writing novels about Spiders. However, this is an independent review since I only purchased his book a few days later.

So The Hatching is a contemporary Science Thriller set in the present/near future and where the action moves seamlessly from Peru to India to Missouri as a global plague of Spiders engulfs our…

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#Ezekiel Boone #The Hatching

Sep 26, 16 - Writing Festivals and other important stuff #lovebooks

Sep 26, 16 – Writing Festivals and other important stuff #lovebooks

Gollanczfest: SF&F writers festival, Foyles London September 17th, 2016

OK, so last week I was at GollanczFest, this is the third year this event has been run, but only the first time I had attended. It was held in Foyles, the biggest bookshop in the UK which is located on Charing Cross Road. If you are not familiar with London, well the shop is just past the Palace Theatre which is where the…

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