British Authors on Twitter... 60 names and counting!

A few weeks ago, US author Carin Berger re-tweeted Mashable's list of the top 100 authors of Twitter. I had read the list already, and enjoyed it, but found it missing a lot of British names I knew were on Twitter because I was following them.

So when Carin also asked ‘but what about the British authors?’ I decided I could at least offer her a list of those I knew. And rather than cram a load of tweets with author userames and chuck them at Carin (causing many authors to think 'is it Follow Friday already?') I thought a list on my blog would be no more effort and a lot more useful. I was wrong about the effort, but hey-ho.

After much cutting and pasting and cursing, it's ready. And, wouldn't you know it, I have a blind spot on spelling 'author'? It keeps coming out 'authour'.

There are Very Important Notes at the end, which should answer some questions you may have, and a few links to other lists of writers on Twitter, including the original Mashable post.

Each name links to that person’s Twitter page. The list is alphabetical (by first name).

So... an incomplete list of British Authors on Twitter


Alain de Botton
writer

Allyson Bird
Horror writer. My collection Bull Running for Girls has been published by Screaming Dreams. Working on a novel called Isis Unbound

Andrea Gillies
Writer. Author of 'Keeper'. Now writing novel.

Andrew Keen
The Anti Christ of Silicon Valley

Belle de Jour
Writer, ne'er-do-well, and inspiration for the TV series Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

Bernadine Kennedy
Novelist (7 books published), Freelance Writer, Traveller and occasional Blogger

Bill Thompson
I'm a hack and pundit

Caroline Smailes
I write novels and I'm trying to live happily ever after.

Charlie Brooker
Miserable writerist

Chris Cleave
I'm a novelist and I write a weekly column for The Guardian

Clare Dudman
British writer with works published by Viking, Sceptre, Serpents Tail, Tor Bantam. Interested in science & history

Clive Barker
Born and Still Living

Daisy Goodwin
Author, poetry anthologist and tv producer. Head Girl at Silver River Productions.

Dave Gorman
Don't drop litter.

Elizabeth Buchan
Best selling author, wife and mother.

Ellie Levenson
Londoner, journalist, lecturer, writer. Author of The Noughtie Girl's Guide to Feminism

Euphrosene Labon
mind body spirit artist author writer cartoonist freelance journalist

Fiona Pitt-Kethley
Author of 21 books.I live with my chessGM husband and son in Spain. My hobbies: snorkelling,minerals,karate,music, cycling, fishing, hill-walks,food,film, cats

Fiona J Mackenzie
Author of The BEAUTY QUEENS and The DARWIN MYSTERIES. Failed saint, successful sinner, descended from a pirate.

Gary William Murning
A writer living in the northeast of England, Gary's first novel, If I Never, is due to be published later this year.

Greg Stekelman
Writer, illustrator, worker bee, idiot

Helen Smith
author - I write novels, children's books, plays, screenplays and poetry

Iain Aitch
Author and journalist, nosey git and Tottenham fan, sometimes funny

Ian Hocking
I'm a novelist and psychologist

Iain Broome
Fiction writer and copywriter for leading UK design company, The Workshop. Blogger-in-chief at Write for Your Life and Websites for writers.

India Knight
Sunday Times columnist, novelist, mammal. This is my personal Twitter.

Jag Bhalla
Sharer of amusing and intriguing expressions from around the world. Author of 'I'm Not Hanging noodles on your Ears'.

Jane Costello
Author of novels including Bridesmaids and The Nearly Weds

Jason Bradbury
TV presenter and author of Dot.Robot

Jill Mansell
Novelist. Hates mustard.

J K Rowling
Children's Author

Jojo Moyes
novelist/author/writer of fiction. mother of three.

Judy Astley
Novelist and supreme timewaster

Katie Fforde
Romantic novelist and bad Flamenco dancer

Kate Harrison
writer & procrastinator

Kerry W. Purcell
Writer on design and photography, father, swimmer, and secret lemonade drinker.

Laura Anderson
Writer of screenplays, novels and stories, reader of words, filmmaker, vegetarian, redhead

Louise Bagshawe
Author/conservative PPC for Corby

M Murray
Ex UK and USA, artful idler, freelance journalist, author, Tuscany holiday houses landlady. Politics, food, gardens, books, animals

Margit Appleton
Author, translator, journalist: Food, fun, France

Marika Cobbold
author, family person, book lover, city dweller, animal lover, ballet fan

Mark Chadbourn
Writer of stuff - novels, TV, comics, movies.

Mark Morris
UK-based writer with 17 novels and dozens of short stories, articles and reviews to his name.

Matt Rudd
Writer/editor at Sunday Times forced by his publishers, Harper, to tweet and twitlit in build-up to 1st novel.

MichaelMarshallSmith
... And Michael Marshall, too.
Author of ONLY FORWARD, THE STRAW MEN, THE INTRUDERS, SPARES, BAD THINGS, THE SERVANTS and other stuff.

Milly Johnson
short romcom novelist and rubbish dieter

Neil Gaiman
will eventually grow up and get a real job. Until then, will keep making things up and writing them down.

Nick Harkaway
Author of The Gone-Away World. General enthusiast.

Oliver Morton NEW
editor and writer concentrating on sci/tech change and its impacts

PD Smith
a writer, reader and photographer. I review for the Guardian, the TLS and others, and am the author of 3 books, most recently Doomsday Men (Penguin).

Sarah Dunant NEW
Novelist, broadcaster, critic. How grand it sounds. How far from the truth. I am however, not complaining. Though I am now older than I ever intended to be.

Stephen Fry
British Actor, Writer, Lord of Dance, Prince of Swimwear & Blogger [though I am pretty sure you have to tick a box to not follow Mr Fry when you start Twitter]

Stevyn Colgan
Writer, Artist, Musician, Squid Hurler, Beer Monkey

Stuart Clark
Science journalist and author. Author of The Sun Kings and the up and coming CosmoThriller, the history of cosmology – fictionalised!

Tania Kindersley
writer, mostly

Terry Pratchett
Books Written Cheap

Tim Atkinson
stay-at-home dad and author of Writing Therapy

Tim Dedopulos
Hi. I'm Tim, and I'm a Brit who writes books. Like sff/horror, oddness, inspiration, INFJ. Always hunting interesting people!

Tim Lebbon
Bald Horror and Fantasy Writer, and lover of fine ales.

...and that's the lot at the moment.

There is also a valuable list of Screenwriters that Tweet on Miss Read’s blog, which you can look at here.

Very Important Notes

The descriptions are not mine, they are taken direct from each author’s Twitter bio.

The list is not my personal recommendations. My recommendation is: read a baker’s dozen of anyone’s tweets before following them. Having said that writers do, in my experience, tweet the best. If you want to see people (to paraphrase Clive James) turn a phrase until it catches the light (in only 140 characters), following writers is a good place to start.

This list is not every British author on Twitter, so it’s open to additions, but because I want the list to be worthwhile (without getting elitist) here's what I am interested in:

1. Published British authors on Twitter.
2. Writing should be a major part of what they do, not a sideline.
3. They should be Tweeting as their author selves.
4. At the moment the bias is to fiction, but I’m not saying no to non-fiction. Maybe there should be two list. Maybe I need a secretary.
   

Let me know who I missed with a comment here, or by contacting me through Twitter (I’m @Angpang). I'll update the list as and when my workload and children let me.

PS - If you want to know more about the Fragonard painting that opens this blog, it's at The National Gallery of Art, Washingto, DC.

Oh, and that Mashable list can be found here.

...in which I humiliate my mother

It’s 1951 and my seven-year-old mother is the new girl in school. She cannot speak the language. She cannot see the black board, because no one’s noticed she’s incredibly short sited. She knows her mother was hit with a cane across the knuckles for speaking Welsh in a Welsh school, so in this English school, she keeps her head down.

A few years later she leaves education at 14 with no qualifications and a tendency to panic near teachers, institutions and forms.

So it’s not until she’s in her sixties that she returns to the schoolroom. And only because her daughter (me) has asked her to and her granddaughter, Ruby, will benefit. She can do remarkable things for other people.

There’s a Family Literacy course at Ruby’s school, offered to all reception children and their families (reception class in England means four-year-olds; children in their first year at school).

Organised by the county council, and free to all, Family Literacy involves three-hour sessions held once a week in the school library. Half the session is just the adults, the other half sees the children and their teacher join in. Most of the time it’s mums who take part; occasionally dads. I think my mum is the first grandparent they’ve had.

The course helps develop adult literacy skills, with an optional exam at the end that’s equivalent to a GCSE (the exam taken by most UK pupils at 16, when compulsory education ends).

It also explains how children are being taught literacy in their school, vital for anyone trying to help at home because if you don’t know this year’s method in this particular school, you’re stuffed.

And as a Family Learner you also spend time in school with the child; the second half of the session. An hour and a half doing something - almost always messy - with an educational angle. Much needed consolation if you feel that four-years-old is a little young to disappear from home and family for six hours a day, five days a week.

The course also involves activities to do at home, and a diary to complete.

So Family Learning rocks. And in case you’re wondering where the maths fits in, there is also a course on numeracy, but not his year.

Having already done Family Literacy with Ruby’s older sister Emelia, I had the fair-minded parent’s dilemma of feeling I must treat them both equally, but not having the time to do it once more.

So I look around for substitutes. My mum comes into focus. She loves her grandchildren, she even likes other people’s children. She’s always lacked confidence with written English, so she’s sure to benefit from the adult learning side of it. And Ruby will love having Nana come to school. So I ask, and she agrees.

At this point I do confess smugness was setting in as I predicted a win-win-win situation. But smugness comes before a slap in the face.

Mum returns from her first session angry and panicking. Fidgeting with unease. She can’t do it. Everyone else can. She has never known what a noun is, and she never will. She feels so humiliated.

Oh bollocks.

I tell her to stop right there, I’ll do it. No problem.

We leave it unresolved. A few days pass. I test the water. Does she want to carry-on?

The Dunkirk spirit emerges. She says a person needs to ‘step outside their comfort zone’ (has she been watching Jeremy Kyle?). She uses the Old Dear Defence: at her age she has nothing to prove, so if she’s rubbish, so what? She’s spending time with Ruby and helping her, that’s what matters.

And she goes, with the ‘don’t give a damn’ attitude that carries you through your teens and dotage.

But she does give a damn about the diary and the homework. An incredibly crafty person, sticking, sewing, painting and stamping is her territory. Filling its pages with amazing diligence and creativity, it’s full of my daughter's handiwork and photos of mum and the girls grinning away with their latest creations.

And comments on how dim she is, and how she’s never going to get it.

Feel I am going backwards as class reminds me how little I know related to grammar…

She also records the little chats she has with Ruby as they do the homework.

Mum: What was the worst thing about today?

Ruby: Going to Tesco’s

Mum: Why?

Ruby: Mummy would not let me have the chocolate hoops for breakfast

And as the pages turn, her comments get a little bit confident.

I may yet crack this (if I could stop panicking)… I am not short of common sense and most of what we talk about is based on this…

No one else on the course bothers with the diary, probably because they’re busy, and have young children: creatures capable of warping time and space so you have none for yourself.

And to be honest, the diary is dull. The same layout each week with the same three prompts: ‘Progress I have made towards my targets’, ‘Achievements this session’, ‘What have I learned?’.

Oh, the temptation to scribble a knob in protest.

Mid-way in the course, the tutor Jayne takes my mum aside and asks her why she’s completed the diary with such dedication. Mum says it’s so Ruby will be able to remember this time more clearly, because you can’t recall very much from when you’re four, and because she, my mother, will not be here forever.

Jayne asks if she can take the diary to show to her manager at the council. It’s passed from office to office with looks of amazement: why is this woman filling in every page with such dedication when almost every other student gives up within a few weeks? They ask her if she will write a little piece for the council newsletter on her experiences. She does this longhand and gets me to type it up ‘to make sure the English is good’.

And having said for so long she won’t bother with the exam, she finds out that it will help the course receive funding if lots of people take it. So she does. And she passes. But having never sat an exam in her life, she says the real victory was walking into the room and sitting down. I agree.

Then Jayne puts her name forward for Learner of the Year, an award organised by the council with nominees from across Lincolnshire and Rutland. When the invitation arrives to the ceremony, she gets the giggles. The whole family decide to go. This is the closest we’ll get to a red carpet.

And so here we are, driving to the award ceremony at The Lawn in Lincoln, formerly the Lincoln Asylum, a posh Georgian building on the hill near the cathedral. Mum, Dad, Jayne and my daughter’s teacher Sarah.

Alas, Ruby’s in bed, she would have loved an occasion that required princess dress and tiara.

We take turns to tease my mum, especially when reception tells us to go to ‘the big room’. The big room in a big place like this turns out to be the central courtyard, only they’ve put a roof on it. 500 seats fill the space.

It’s a heart-warming night. All the nominees are called out for a handshake and certificate. Normal people who’ve worked bloody hard, most overcoming major obstacles, cheered on by teachers and their family.

And then it’s time for the winners in each age group, all introduced by a little speech. The game is to work out if it’s you or yours they’re talking about….

This person left school without any qualifications and returned to learning to support her grandchildren. She has overcome her nerves and lack of confidence to become a very valuable and well respected member of her group, willing to share her experiences and contribute to sessions. Once she realised she could learn she worked hard and studied from books bought for her by her family to improve her skills. Her diary has been completed with dedication and passion and will be a wonderful reminder for her grandchildren in years to come. She has also overcome her phobia of exams to take the literacy National Test recently. Her tutor says she is an inspiration, what every grandparent should be like – she is amazing…

So yes, she had won. £50 and a long walk to the front of the room to whistles from the rowdies at the back. She did go very, very red.

You see I was right to be smug.