Join me on Saturday at 2pm for Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM. This week, I’ll be talking to the wonderful Gill James.

Gill is a writer, publisher and creative writing lecturer. She writes fantasy and science novels for children and young adults, historical novels for women and short fiction for a variety of readers. She works with a small group of other writers, designers and editors on collections of short stories and flash fiction, novels and non-fiction about feisty women, and books for children. She also edits an e-zine, CaféLit, that publishes one story a day to be consumed with an afternoon cuppa. CaféLit supports the Creative Café project, which brings creative practitioners and their supporters together in a café environment.

Gill has published twelve full novels, over a hundred short stories in all sorts of places and several non-fiction books about creative writing and language learning. The publishing imprints for which she edits, and which she manages, Bridge House Publishing, CaféLit, Chapeltown Books and The Red Telephone, have produced over one hundred trade books as well as half a dozen private collections for schools and other organisations. They are currently publishing about twelve books a year. An important project for Gill is The Schellberg Cycle – interlinked novels about young women involved in Nazi Germany, World War II and the Holocaust. Three are published and two are in the process of being published. These grew from a fascinating primary resource and a sabbatical from the University of Salford.

I’ll be talking to Gill about her novels and short stories, and also about her publishing projects and imprints. And, of course, she’ll be sharing her selections for this week’s Apocalypse Books.

Join me on Saturday at 2pm on 106.6FM (if you’re in the North Manchester area) or listen online (if you’re further afield).