Bookwitch

I suppose a genie is a second cousin to a witch, or something. Whatever, Steve Cole of CIA fame, has branched out into magic with the help of Linda Chapman. I didn’t know Linda at all before Tuesday’s visit to the witch’s watering hole, but I understand she dabbles in unicorns and stuff. More than dabbles, actually. Linda has an impressive pile of books to her name. She even has books in a different name as well, as Alex Cliff.

Steve and Linda have co-written a book about four children who find a bookworm (what else?) in an old book, and who set about learning to become genies. There’s a tremendous amount of whizzing in and out of lamps, and masses of squabbling amongst the children as they learn and mature with their task. And for the doubting witch it was a useful lesson to find that the story went in a different direction from the one expected.

To be able to write with someone else, strikes me as almost impossible, but Linda and Steve seem to have worked out how to do it. It went so well they wrote 30,000 words too many and had to prune.

And (this is a subject close to my heart) I now know what you do if you’re stuck in your lamp for a long time and need the toilet.